The images show how a number of workers in protective suits place the coffins in a huge ditch. Yesterday alone, at least 40 people are said to have been buried on the island.
Victims of the AIDS epidemic
Hart Island, in northern New York and near The Bronx, has been used to bury the dead for years. These are people for whom nobody reports after death. The island was also used to bury victims of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
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In New York, it has been a policy for the past 150 years that dead people for whom no one reports are buried by prisoners. On Hart Island, it is normally Riker’s Island detainees who do the work, but due to the danger of spreading in prisons, a company has now been brought in.
Five days a week
Normally, dead are buried once a week, about 25 on average, but during the corona crisis, that is done on five days a week. More than twenty bodies are now buried per day. The island is used to relieve tremendous pressure on the city’s overcrowded morgues. It is not clear whether the people buried on Hart Island died of the coronavirus.
The total number of deaths from the virus in the US is 16,478. New York is considered the epicenter of the country.
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