It is an elected municipal official who announces it. New York City, in the United States, may soon need to temporarily bury victims of the coronavirus pandemic in a city park, due to lack of sufficient capacity in the morgues.
While the death toll has exploded for 10 days in the American economic capital, epicenter of the epidemic, reaching 2,475 Monday morning, Mark Levine, who represents northern Manhattan, indicated on his Twitter account that “ temporary burials ”.
“This will probably be done using a municipal park for burials (yes, you read that right). Trenches will be dug for rows of 10 coffins, ”he added.
This announcement was immediately relayed and commented on on social networks and New York media. This prompted Mark Levine to “clarify” and explain that the use of a park was only a backup plan, “which will not be used if the death toll decreases sufficiently” in the coming days.
The mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, had earlier referred to “temporary burials” to “hold out until the end of the crisis”. “We are not there, I will not go into details,” he added during a press briefing.
Deaths aren’t just on the rise in hospitals, Levine said. Before the crisis, 20 to 25 people died in their homes in New York every day. Now, according to him, 200 to 215 people die in their homes every day.
