Coronavirus: New York mulls mass graves as victims fill morgues
- Deaths at home averaging 200 to 215 a day, compared to usual 20 to 25, threatening to overwhelm city’s capacity
- Despite earlier reports of park burials, Mayor Bill de Blasio says such temporary interments would probably be made on Hart Island in Long Island Sound
As New York’s fatalities from the new coronavirus increase and threaten to overwhelm the city’s capacity to handle the dead, officials have begun to consider resorting to temporary burial sites, just in case.
“Soon we’ll start ‘temporary interment.’ This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials,” City Councilman Mark Levine, chairman of its Health Committee, posted on Twitter.
Deaths at home are now averaging 200 to 215 a day, compared with an average 20 to 25 a day, Levine said.
A city protocol drafted in 2008 proposed interment solutions in the event of a catastrophe resulting in too many fatalities for the city’s morgue to handle.
The Medical Examiner’s planning document does not mention parks as potential sites, but city officials have discussed locating temporary burial grounds in “fairly low-trafficked parks with open spaces”, Levine said in an interview.
“We are pretty full on capacity at temporary morgues and storage freezers now so it could be imminent unless we have a significant drop off in the number of deaths or an increase in capacity,” Levine said.