
Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest coastal city has been ravaged by coronavirus with bodies buried in mass graves or kept in newly-filled shipping containers to help relatives identify their loved ones among the decomposing corpses.

International health authorities expressed concern on Tuesday over signs the spread of the new coronavirus is still accelerating in Brazil, Peru, and Chile. The Pan American Health Organization, which serves as the regional office for the World Health Organization, has been monitoring the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mexico's auto industry reopening picked up the pace on Tuesday, with Fiat, Chrysler, and BMW AG joining peers in gradually dusting off operations even as the wait for approvals slowed the return of Ford Motor Co and other companies.

Demonstrators defied coronavirus restrictions to march in cities across Ecuador on Monday in protest against President Lenin Moreno's drastic economic measures to tackle the crisis.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Sunday that the novel coronavirus could cost as many as a million jobs in the country as many industries considered not essential remain shut.

South America has become “a new epicenter” of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, following a surge in the number of Covid-19 infections.

Peru on Friday extended its state of emergency and a nationwide lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic until the end of June, marking one of the longest periods of mandatory isolation in the world.

Every five years, a statue of the Virgin of Socorro is paraded through the streets of Peru’s third-largest city, Trujillo. But this year, the coronavirus lockdown meant the city’s patron saint could not make her rounds as usual.

Bolivia's interim president, Jeanine Anez, on Wednesday fired Health Minister Marcelo Navajas for his alleged role in a kickback scheme involving the purchase of 170 Spanish-made ventilators at inflated prices for COVID-19 patients.

Global coronavirus cases surpassed 5 million on Wednesday, with Latin America overtaking the United States and Europe in the past week to report the largest portion of new daily cases globally.