Mobility impact in the spreading of COVID-19 in Ecuador

Ecuador has reported one of the highest per capita death rates of COVID-19 in the world,  with  more  than  5000  deaths  in  a  country  of  approxi-mately 17 million people.  Transmission of COVID-19 infection in Ecuador has been the result of contact patterns, mobility structure of the population, regional epidemiology, and efficacy of public health interventions. In this study, we link provincial-level demographic,  epidemiological,  and  transportation  information with the spread of COVID-19 outbreak to understand the role of local patterns of low and high-density provinces on the infection growth rate at the country level. The analysis is carried out using best (with no interprovincial movement) and worst (with movement patterns similar to before COVID-19 outbreak) case scenarios in Ecuador. The results suggest that human movement (instead of local epidemiology) has primarily been shaping transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in Ecuador by introducing infected individuals regularly into low-risk provinces.