Mass burials surge as New York City set to hit 100,000 coronavirus cases

Source: Politico | April 10, 2020 | Erin Durkin

NEW YORK — The number of burials at New York’s Hart Island, a sprawling public cemetery holding the remains of the unclaimed dead, has increased fivefold as the death toll from the coronavirus continues to rise in the city.

With the pandemic claiming at least 5,065 lives in New York by Friday, overwhelmed mortuaries have moved unclaimed bodies — many that had been held for more than month, from people who died of other causes — to the island in order to make more space for coronavirus casualties.

Aerial photos of the burials, published Thursday by the Associated Press, offered viral portraits of one of the darkest moments since the pandemic began.

Even as signs continued to emerge Friday that the outbreak may be near its peak in New York, the national epicenter of the global crisis, city officials said said the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases continued to rise. The total was expected to hit 100,000 by the end of the day.

“And that’s only the ones we know about,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference, adding that it is likely hundreds of thousands more have been infected but not tested.

The developments on Hart Island further underscored the urgent challenges facing New York officials. The facility, off the coast of the Bronx, has been used for a century and half to bury New Yorkers who have no next of kin, and those whose families are too poor to afford a private burial.

The city is currently burying 125 people a week there — with 25 people interred per day, five days a week. Typically, there are 25 burials per week. The number was up to 100 a week last Friday, POLITICO reported, and has now increased even further.

“There are people who pass away, and there is no family member, no loved one, no friend, no one who we can find … who has a connection to that person and is going to take responsibility for their burial,” de Blasio told reporters Friday.

“This has been the truth for generations,” he said. “But more people are passing away, obviously, in large measure because of Covid.”

The city medical examiner cut to 14 days the amount of time it will hold unclaimed remains before sending them to Hart Island for burial. De Blasio said Friday that, as long as a family member comes forward within that 14 days, the city will continue to hold a body indefinitely until funeral arrangements can be made.

“If no one has claimed them, no one has communicated, no one can be found in any way, shape or form, they will be buried,” de Blasio said. “If the family members and loved ones communicate, even if they can’t come now, that will be handled differently.”

The dead not claimed within that two week window can still be exhumed from Hart Island if family members later come forward.

The potter’s field’s 1 million dead include the homeless and early AIDS victims whose remains were rejected by funeral homes.

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