Temporary Burials Eyed As NYC's CoronavIrus Death Toll Nears 2.5K

NEW YORK CITY — Temporary burials are being planned in the city as the death rate nears 2,500 and funeral homes are left totally overwhelmed.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the burials would be carried out because the sheer number of the dead meant formal funerals couldn't be performed quickly and hospitals and funeral homes didn't have the capacity to hold the deceased.

Many hospitals have been using refrigerated trucks to store the dead.

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A city councilmember suggested that parks are being considered as suitable for the burial grounds, describing a plan to dig trenches and line caskets side by side.

Soon we'll start “temporary interment”. This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line.

It will be done in a dignified, orderly--and temporary--manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take. 9/
— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) April" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/MarkLevine... 6, 2020

But de Blasio only mentioned an area of the city already used for burials.

"Obviously the place we've used historically is Hart Island," the mayor said, referencing a stretch of land off the shore of The Bronx that's home to the nation's largest burial ground which holds more than 1 million people, many of which were poor or had no family members.

Hart Island is run by the city's parks department.

"There will be delays because of the sheer intensity of this crisis. We will treat every family with dignity and we will respect the religious needs of those who are devout. But we do have capacity for temporary burials."

The mayor refused to go into more details, saying “I don’t think it’s a great thing to be talking about.”

But the city's Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said that there are no special precautions needed to be taken when handling people who have died from the coronavirus.

Funeral homes across the city are stretched beyond capacity as they try to handle the amount of people dying. In Sunset Park, funeral director Pat Marmo said his business could handle up to 60 cases a day. Last Thursday, he had 185.

"This is a state of emergency," he said. "We need help."

Social distancing rules have also made it impossible for family members to gather and say their goodbyes at funerals.

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