In May we had 54% of people who knew they were infected, who broke the isolation for up to seven hours a day (...) and in June it rose to six out of ten, 59.5%, Solórzano told the Ecuavisa channel.

Ecuador, with 17.5 million inhabitants, reported this Wednesday, July 22, about 77,300 cases of Covid-19, including more than 5,400 deaths (31 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants). In addition, there are 3,400 fatalities likely from the pandemic.

Quito is the city where infections have accelerated the most in recent weeks. The Ecuadorian capital, with 11,741 cases, is 29 cases over the figure for the port of Guayaquil, in the southwest and which was one of the first outbreaks of the disease in Latin America.

Faced with the increase in cases in Quito, which as of June 30 had 6,571 infected, the government ordered military and police patrols in neighborhoods where the highest number of infections and non-compliance with regulations have been identified.

Solórzano indicated that in the capital, with 2.8 million residents, 78% of people do not want to accept these mobility controls, they do not want to accept the use of a mask and don't agree with social distancing, which means no meetings and no parties.

Yes, infections are still on the rise, of course, but we do know the transmission speed and it has been changing because it is directly proportional to people's behavior, he added.

Ecuador applies a 'traffic light' measure scale that establishes the level of danger, in which the red color contemplates the toughest measures such as an eleven-hour curfew per day.

95% of localities in the country, including Quito (with an eight-hour curfew), are in yellow, an intermediate level of alert.

But Ombudsman Freddy Carrión last week called on authorities to tighten up confinement measures in the capital due to the collapse of intensive care units.

The Ecuadorian government began in May to relax the quarantine measures to reactivate the battered economy.