COVID-19, Public Responses and Government Models: A Comparative Analysis of Quito and Guayaquil

Ecuador performed badly during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, showing a weak public response and the confirmation of dissimilar and contradictory approaches to COVID-19 in the different territories of the country. The purpose of this research is to carry out a comparative analysis of local management of the pandemic in the two main cities of the country, Quito and Guayaquil. The work investigates local public actors, their agencies, narratives and strategies against COVID, as an expression of governance models and the type of local political regime. It is hoped that this approach will allow us to understand how each of these local governments responded to the pandemic. It is a descriptive and comparative work that approximates two variables. On the one hand, the behavior of COVID-19 in these cities, specifically the (over)mortality and the spatial trajectory. On the other hand, based on a reconstruction of public agencies, the management modes, dominant narratives and management strategies that convey specific governance modalities and urban regimes.