New York funeral home in chaos amid Covid-19 0
`When I close my eyes, I still see those terrible scenes,` said Mak, manager of Ng Fook funeral service company in New York.
Pat Marmo, owner of Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home in Brooklyn, New York.
N Fook’s four funeral homes are located in Chinese communities in various locations in the city.
Overcrowding forced authorities to move bodies to distant crematoriums and cut funeral services, especially in New York, which recorded nearly 26,000 deaths from nCoV, the most in the country.
Still, bodies continued to arrive.
The entire United States has so far reported nearly 1.3 million cases of nCoV infection and nearly 77,000 deaths, showing the price to pay for mistakes in the Covid-19 response strategy, a fractured and oppressive health system.
US President Donald Trump repeatedly praised the authorities’ response, but the federal government quietly ordered an additional 100,000 body bags and opened a bid for about 200 refrigerated trucks to transport bodies.
New York funeral directors currently have to wait up to three weeks for a position in a cemetery or crematory.
`I’m sure there’s not just one funeral home with bodies in trucks like that,` Mak said.
At some cemeteries, new regulations have been introduced that require family members to sit in their cars and watch the burial process remotely.
The number of bodies needing to be processed at Hannemann funeral home in Nyack, upstate New York, has increased by 500%.
`I can’t bury them all,` he said.
Relatives bid a final farewell to the deceased who died of nCoV infection outside a funeral home in New York.
John D’Arienzo, director of D’Arienzo funeral home in Brooklyn, said he worked so hard that he forgot to eat and lost 9 kg.
Funeral directors say the job becomes especially difficult when many of the dead were members of the same family.
Recently, Taylor was preparing to handle a man’s body when he received a request to postpone because this man’s wife was also in critical condition.
Although the risk of nCoV infection from a body is relatively low, researchers in Thailand recently reported the first case of infection from a dead person to a member of the forensic examination team.
As Mak prepares to end another long day of work, he reflects on what has happened over the past two months.
Vu Hoang (According to SCMP)
