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Where
will the
bodies
go?
Morgues
plan as
virus
grows
CLAUDIA
LAUER
and
JESSICA
GRESKO
apnews.com
PHILADELPHIA
- There
are the
new
dead.
And then
there
are the
bodies
waiting
in
overcrowded
mortuaries
to be
buried
as
cities
struggle
to meet
demand
and
families
wrestle
with
rules on
social
distancing
that
make the
usual
funeral
rituals
impossible.
Med
Alliance
Group, a
medical
distributor
in
Illinois,
is
besieged
by calls
and
emails
from
cities
around
the
country.
Each
asks the
same
thing:
Send
more
refrigerated
trailers
so that
we can
handle a
situation
we never
could
have
imagined.
“They’re
coming
from all
over:
From
hospitals,
health
systems,
coroner’s
offices,
VA
facilities,
county
and
state
health
departments,
state
emergency
departments
and
funeral
homes,”
said
Christie
Penzol,
a
spokeswoman
for Med
Alliance.
“It’s
heart-wrenching.”
The
company
has
rented
all its
trailers
and
there’s
an
18-week
wait for
new
materials
to build
more,
she
said.
With
U.S.
medical
experts
and even
President
Donald
Trump
now
estimating
the
death
toll
from the
coronavirus
pandemic
could
reach
240,000
nationwide,
the
sheer
practicalities
of death
— where
to put
the
bodies —
are
worrying
just
about
everyone
as
cities,
hospitals
and
private
medical
groups
clamor
to
secure
additional
storage.
The
need is
compounded
by
private
mortuary
space
that is
occupied
longer
than
usual as
people
wait to
bury
their
loved
ones—
regardless
of how
they
died—
because
rules on
social
distancing
make
planning
funerals
difficult.
It’s
a crisis
being
repeated
worldwide.
In
Spain,
where
the
death
toll has
climbed
to
nearly
12,000,
an ice
rink in
Madrid
was
turned
into a
makeshift
morgue
after
the
city’s
municipal
funeral
service
said it
could no
longer
take
coronavirus
bodies
until it
was
restocked
with
protective
equipment.
In
Italy,
embalmed
bodies
in
caskets
are
being
sent to
church
halls
and
warehouses
while
they
await
cremation
or
burial.
And
in the
coastal
Ecuadorian
city of
Guayaquil,
macabre
images
and
pleas
from
families
on
social
media
show
dead
loved
ones
wrapped
in
plastic
or
cloth,
waiting
for days
to be
taken
away by
overwhelmed
morgue
workers.
In
the U.S.
epicenter
of New
York
City,
where
the
death
toll was
nearly
1,900 on
Saturday,
authorities
brought
in
refrigerated
trucks
to store
bodies.
At
Brooklyn
Hospital
Center,
a worker
wheeled
out a
body
covered
in white
plastic
on a
gurney
and a
forklift
operator
carefully
raised
it into
a
refrigerated
trailer.
Cities
and
states
that
haven’t
been
hard-hit
yet are
trying
to
prepare
for the
worst.
It’s
hard to
say
exactly
how much
morgue
space is
available
nationwide.
Many
cities
and
counties
submit
emergency
preparedness
plans
for
review
by state
and
federal
officials,
but
tallies
aren’t
always
complete
and
private
mortuaries
aren’t
always
included.
Trade
groups
like the
National
Association
of
Medical
Examiners
don’t
track
those
capacities
either.
But,
in
general,
few
morgues
in the
country
can hold
even 200
to 300
bodies.
In
Washington,
D.C.,
which
has a
morgue
that can
hold
about
270
bodies,
officials
said
they
would
seek
help
from
federal
partners
if
needed.
Dallas
has a
plan for
refrigerated
space as
part of
its
emergency
preparedness
efforts.
And
Chicago
is
already
using a
trailer
outside
the
medical
examiner’s
office
for the
bodies
of
coronavirus
victims,
and may
use a
refrigerated
warehouse
if
needed.
Meanwhile,
the
Federal
Emergency
Management
Agency
has
asked
the
Defense
Department
for
100,000
body
bags,
Pentagon
spokesman
Air
Force
Lt. Col.
Michael
Andrews
said
Thursday.
On a
daily
basis,
the
system
works at
essentially
full
capacity
in most
jurisdictions,
said
Robert
A.
Jensen,
co-owner
of
Kenyon
International
Emergency
Services,
a
private
disaster
response
company
based in
Texas.
“They’re
not made
for
surge.
They’re
made to
handle
the
daily
numbers,”
said
Jensen,
whose
company
has
helped
with
mass
fatality
incidents
from
9/11 to
Hurricane
Katrina
to the
2004
tsunami
in
Thailand,
all of
which
involved
using
refrigerated
trucks
to store
bodies.
In
Pennsylvania,
the
state
coroner’s
association
is
working
to
figure
out
resources
and help
with
what
will
likely
be
regional
planning.
Brian
Abernathy,
Philadelphia’s
Managing
Director,
said the
city had
secured
refrigerated
trucks
to help
with any
overflow
storage
needed
for
bodies.
The city
had
reported
26
deaths
as of
Friday.
“This
isn’t
because
we
expect a
large
influx
of
people
succumbing
to the
illness,
but
rather
it’s
likely
that
there
will be
fewer
funerals,
which
will
cause
backups
in both
our city
morgues
as well
as the
hospital
morgues,”
Abernathy
said.
Brian
Murphy,
the CEO
of
Arctic
Industries,
which
manufactures
walk-in
coolers
and
quick-assemble
modular
structures
in Miami
and Los
Angeles,
said he
is
getting
calls
seeking
help. In
the
past,
most
clients
were
from the
food
industry,
but with
restaurants
shuttered,
calls
about
mortuary
needs
have
risen.
He
says his
company
is
prioritizing
work
related
to
COVID-19
and is
considering
working
more
hours to
meet
needs.
“Everything
is very
much in
flux,”
Murphy
said.
The
families
of the
dead,
meanwhile,
are
making
do.
Rosina
Argondizzo
of
Glenview,
Illinois,
was
buried
in March
with
just a
priest
and four
people
present:
her
husband
of 58
years,
her son
Peter,
his wife
and
their
son.
Another
son who
lives in
Italy
didn’t
travel.
Peter
Argondizzo
said his
79-year-old
mother,
who died
after
contracting
pneumonia
and the
flu,
would
have had
a very
different
funeral
in
normal
times.
“We’re
Italian
so it
would
have
been a
lot of
people.
... It
would
have
been
big,” he
said,
adding
they
would
have
hosted a
meal in
her
honor,
something
they now
hope to
do at a
later
date.
“She
would
have
wanted
everyone
to have
been
well-fed.”
David
Dittman
said he
inquired
about
waiting
to hold
a
funeral
for his
94-year-old
mother,
Ruth,
who died
after
battling
cancer,
so more
family
could
attend.
But
the
funeral
home
handling
arrangements
in
Connecticut
didn’t
want to
hold the
body for
more
than two
weeks.
He
said he
understood:
“Especially
with
this
rush of
people
that may
be
coming
at them.
They may
be
overwhelmed,
you
know.”
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