First modification: 11/05/2021 – 12:01
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They will have spent more than twelve months in these makeshift morgues, in one of the richest cities in the world. The New York Office of Forensic Medicine just admitted that the bodies of 750 people who died in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic are still stored in refrigerated trucks.
With our New York correspondent, Carrie Nooten
The image, taken from a helicopter, is shocking: more than 40 refrigerated trailers on the dock of a port area in Brooklyn, allegedly containing 750 bodies of Covid-19 victims.
This latest secret in managing the pandemic in New York was revealed a few days ago at a town hall meeting. And that outraged Marc Gjonaji, one of the councilors, who did not hesitate to compare the treatment they receive with furniture from a warehouse or unclaimed luggage in lost property.
Temporary morgue
These trucks were used as temporary morgues at the height of the pandemic, a year ago. But, as Dina Maniotis of the New York Office of Forensic Medicine explains, the city wanted to give families time to organize funerals for their loved ones, whereas funerals have long been difficult to organize.
Councilors like Marc Gjonaji advocate helping families organize burials on Hart Island in the Long Island Sound. For more than a century, this is where New York’s homeless and anonymous have been buried, both in mass graves and individual graves.
Dignity and respect
Gjonaji believes that the city owes it to these dead to bury them with dignity and respect. Hart Island is scheduled to reopen to the public this weekend. This could convince families to finally bury their loved ones there.
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