Coronavirus: in the face of the death toll, New York is considering “temporary burials”

How to relieve overwhelmed funeral directors? While in Île-de-France, a refrigerated hall in Rungis has turned into a morgue, it is New York City’s turn to have to deal with this thorny subject. As well as this Monday, April 6, its mayor Bill de Blasio said he was considering burying victims “temporarily”. “We are not there, I will not go into details,” he however nuanced.

Because with nearly 3,500 dead, the future of the bodies poses a real problem in the American epicenter of the epidemic. Especially since the national authorities are expecting the worst in the coming weeks. On the subject, it is therefore the president of the health committee of the city council, Mark D. Levine, who opened the debate. And caused an uproar. On Twitter, this elected representative from north Manhattan said that the office of the chief medical examiner was considering creating temporary mass graves in a public park. “This will likely be done using a city park for burials (yes, you read that right). Trenches will be dug for rows of 10 coffins.” In an already metamorphosed city, with tents for the sick planted in Central Park , this statement immediately struck the spirits.

This outing was quickly denied by Governor Andrew Cuomo. “I have heard a lot of crazy rumors but I haven’t heard anything about the city burying people in parks,” he told a daily press briefing. Information that the mayor also denied. In part only. If the park will not ultimately be a burial place, the elected Democrat ensuring that the city’s morgues are still able to accommodate the dead, we must be ready for anything. So, according to his statements during a press conference at Brooklyn Navy Yard, America’s largest metropolis may have to face a “difficult” choice. Namely that of finding a place of “temporary burials in order to face the crisis”. “Such a decision would thus make it possible to temporarily manage the wave of deaths and to work” later with the families “to find” appropriate arrangements “.

It was finally in the evening, after the intervention of the two elected officials, that Mark D. Levine backed down. He now assures that the city authorities have given him “the unequivocal guarantee” that no burial will take place in the city’s parks.

A complex issue to manage. Which is added to that of the sick. New York hospitals are also starting to saturate. As well as for patients, a vast cathedral transformed into a field hospital awaits them.