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News > U.S.

Death Toll Makes New York Funeral Homes to Collapse

  • A casket is placed in a hearse in Brooklyn, New York, USA, April 30, 2020.

    A casket is placed in a hearse in Brooklyn, New York, USA, April 30, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Published 30 April 2020
Opinion

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner enabled mobile morgues to ease the situation.

New York City (NYC) Police Wednesday discovered two trucks containing a hundred decomposing corpses outside a small funeral home in south Brooklyn. 

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The pestilence alerted the neighbors who assured that the transfer of corpses from vehicles laking refrigeration, which is not allowed by the city norms, had been taking place for weeks.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the Brooklyn case is "abominable" and "unacceptable" but noted that most of the city's funeral homes are doing commendable work.

"It is not the first time that something similar has happened. For small funeral homes, it is a very difficult time to manage," said Angelique Corthals, who is a professor of Forensic Science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Her assessment was confirmed by Omar Rodriguez, who works at a funeral home in Queens, a borough that registers a third of the 16,500 coronavirus-related deaths.

"Stress is unimaginable. Over the past few weeks, we have had to cremate or bury over 200 people. We work 24 hours a day... now I have my father hospitalized,” Rodriguez said and commented that his workplace is full of cardboard coffins.

“We have to collect bodies all over Queens. We've been able to manage the increase, but the city bureaucracy is not ready for this. We have to wait for us to get the certificates up to several days,” he added.

Last time New York city faced something similar was in 1918, when the "Spanish flu" caused about 30,000 deaths.

To somewhat ease the current situation, the NY Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) enabled mobile morgues, sped up some processes, and hired dozens of forensic investigators and mortuary technicians.

"We need more forensic pathologists not only in New York but around the world... This crisis shows that we must reform medical schools," Corthals said.

"Pathologists are emerging from their basements and doing essential detective work... and establishing the true dimension of the pandemic," she added.

As of Thursday morning, the United States had reported 1,080,210 COVID-19 cases and 62,675 deaths. In NYC there have been 172,784 COVID-19 cases and 17,809 deaths so far.

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