Bolivia’s plan to hold elections in September is increasingly in doubt amid rising coronavirus deaths, and reports that police have recovered the bodies of hundreds of suspected Covid-19 victims, the Guardian reports.

In the past five days, a special police unit had found 420 bodies in streets, vehicles and homes in the capital, La Paz, and in Bolivia’s biggest city, Santa Cruz, authorities said on Tuesday. Between 80% and 90% of them are believed to have had the virus.

Elections scheduled for September were seen as a key step in stabilising Bolivia’s democracy after a year of political tumult that reached its peak in November when Evo Morales was forced to resign as president by the military.

But this week, a committee that advises the health ministry on outbreak containment measures said in a letter to the country’s top election official that holding the elections as scheduled would not be advisable because of the rapid spread of the virus.

“[Most researchers agree that] to plan activities such as an election, you must wait for the epidemiological curve of active cases to have a sustained decrease for a period of 14 days, so the date of 6 September is not appropriate,” the committee, made up mostly of doctors, wrote to Salvador Romero, the president of the supreme electoral tribunal.

Bolivia has reported nearly 2,300 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, although the real number is believed to be higher.

The election tribunal, which has not yet commented on the letter recommending a postponement of the vote, decides on the date with the endorsement of congress, currently dominated by the Movement for Socialism party (MAS). The group was led by Morales, who was forced to resign as president after protests over an election that international observers said was marred by irregularities.