Grave images of workers in hazmat suits burying coffins in mass graves in New York are emerging. The rising death toll in New York City has led the city to resort to mass burials. Most of these burials are taking place in Hart island, a limited access strip of land near the Bronx suburb. Hart Island is usually used for New Yorkers with no next of kin or who cannot afford a funeral.
Currently, the New York State has more coronavirus cases than any single country, with the number of confirmed cases being 159,137 of whom, 7,000 have died.
Spain has had 153,000 cases and Italy 143,000, while China, where the virus emerged last year, has reported 82,000 cases. Confirmed cases of the virus in the US are 462,000 and deaths due to the virus are 16,500 as of Friday.
With the number of deaths mounting, spaces in the city morgues are dwindling. Due to this, the city has reduced the number of days it will hold the body in morgues from 30 days to 14 days before they are buried in the public cemetery.
Burial operations at Hart island have increased, as per an NBC New York report. Operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials per day.
Burials for the indigent population are usually carried out by inmates from the city’s Rikers Island jail complex. But, with the number of deaths escalating, the job has been taken over by contractors.
Burying the dead seems to be least of the cities’ woes. As per a Reuters report, emergency rooms in the city’s hospitals are packed and many people are dying at home or non-hospital settings. Though sick, people are avoiding the hospital, which increases the risk of them dying at home.
As per a Vox report, the Trump administration on Tuesday said that approximately 2.2 million Americans could lose their lives if nothing was done to stop the spread of the virus.
