No one should have known Bella Lamilla's name.
But within hours of her diagnosis as Ecuador's first coronavirus case, it was circulating on social media along with photos showing the retired schoolteacher unconscious and intubated in a hospital bed.
Her large, close-knit family watched in horror as a dual tragedy began to unfold: While Lamilla fought for her life in intensive care, strangers began tearing apart her reputation online.
"Knowing she had it, the old lady didn't care and went all around," one person commented on Facebook.
"It was ugly," said Pedro Valenzuela, 22, Lamilla's great-nephew. "It hurt a lot."
The spreading global pandemic has tested the competing interests of public health and privacy, with thousands of individuals experiencing both physical illness and the less-visible stigma that can come with it.
While there are many stories about good deeds and people coming together, the coronavirus is also bringing out another, darker side of some people: Fear, anger, resentment and shaming.
More From This Section
In India, doctors have reported being evicted by landlords worried they'll spread coronavirus to other tenants. In the town of St Michel in Haiti, people stoned an orphanage after a Belgian volunteer was diagnosed.
In Indonesia, an early coronavirus patient was subjected to cruel innuendo suggesting she contracted it through sex work.
Psychologists say the desire to identify and castigate those who are ill harkens to an age-old instinct to protect oneself and relatives from catching a potentially fatal disease and a belief, however unfounded, that those who get it bear some responsibility.
"Illness is one of the fundamental fears humans have been dealing with their entire evolution," said Jeff Sherman, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis. "It's not really surprising they would be hostile toward someone they believe is responsible for bringing illness into their community."
Located along a sage-coloured river about an hour from Ecuador's Pacific coast, Babahoyo has a small-town feel despite its population of 95,000. The extended Lamilla family is well-known there and prominent, including doctors, engineers and schoolteachers.
Bella Lamilla, one of six sisters, lost her husband to leukemia and raised their four children on her own. On February 14 she boarded a 12-hour Iberia flight to Guayaquil. She noticed people coughing on the plane and tried to protect herself somewhat by covering up in a blanket.
Arriving in Ecuador, Lamilla sailed through immigration with no questions asked, even though she'd started feeling feverish.
The next day Lamilla's head was pounding. About two dozen relatives feted her at a welcome-home barbecue, where she didn't seem her usual energetic self.
She went to two different local doctors, who dismissed her ailments as side effects of a urinary infection or a possible muscular problem. When she began having difficulty breathing a week later, relatives took her to a private hospital in the nearby city of Guayaquil.
The Alcivar Hospital said it alerted the Ministry of Public Health about her case February 22, two days after Lamilla arrived, but got no response. Only the National Institute for Public Health Investigation could do the test, the clinic said, and it wasn't until February 27 that authorities agreed to analyse a specimen for coronavirus.
Finally a doctor pulled Lamilla's children aside and delivered the news: She was Ecuador's "patient zero". Almost immediately the rumours and fury began swirling on social media.
On Facebook and WhatsApp, a medical document with Lamilla's name began circulating. Photos and videos showing the petite woman with short blonde hair being transported in a hospital bed appeared online. Later, a map with addresses of the family's homes in Babahoyo began making the rounds as well.
Facebook users dredged up old photographs of the family at a soccer game to imply they'd exposed thousands.
Patients elsewhere whose identities became public have endured similar attacks.
Minutes after Indonesia announced its first two cases, the names of Sita Tyasutami and her mother leaked online with their phone numbers and home address. Hundreds of WhatsApp messages flooded in.
People shared photos of Tyasutami, a 31-year-old professional dancer, shimmying in a feathered Brazilian samba bikini, and spread baseless speculation that she contracted the virus after being "rented" by a foreign male client.
Studies show that when people link disease to behaviour, they are more likely to blame the sick and ostracize them. Researchers have found people harbour negative attitudes towards individuals with a wide range of illnesses, with HIV/AIDS often at the top. But even those with seemingly lesser conditions can experience stigma.
A survey in Hong Kong several years after the 2003 SARS outbreak, another coronavirus that killed nearly 800, found a small portion of the population still stigmatised those who had contracted the illness.
Mental health experts say that as more celebrities and politicians announce they have the virus, the rebuke many coronavirus patients have felt could ease.
Actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson won plaudits for publicly discussing their cases, putting a pair of well-liked faces to COVID-19.
But for less famous patients whose names have been involuntarily shared, the experience has been far more isolating.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
