New York / Washington – New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus in the United States, is evaluating using a park as a temporary cemetery in the face of the collapse of the morgues and the continuous increase in deaths, which has already exceeded 10,000 in the entire country. .
“It will be done in a dignified, orderly, and temporary way, but it will be tough on New Yorkers,” Councilman Mark D. Levine, who chairs the New York health committee, explained on Twitter.
The plan, which will only apply if deaths continue to rise, is to dig ditches to bury 10 coffins in line in a public park and thus avoid “images like those in Italy, where the military had to collect the bodies of churches and even of the streets, “Levine said.
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Currently, New York cemeteries are having difficulty responding to the overwhelming number of burials, and at the same time, morgues are overwhelmed with a body count that exceeds the 3,000 who lost their lives in the September 11 terrorist attacks. 2001.
Hart Island, possible burial place
Levine did not specify in which New York park the coronavirus deceased would be temporarily buried; But, in a press conference, the New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, explained that Hart Island, located northeast of the Bronx neighborhood, has previously been used for tragedies of this type.
“Obviously, the place we have historically used is the island of Hart,” said de Blasio, although he did not confirm that this space is chosen.
More than a million people are buried on Hart Island, many of them in unmarked graves either because the deceased was not identified at the time of death or because the family was unable to afford the costs of a burial, according to It is listed on the New York City website.
In 1985, when AIDS ruthlessly hit the United States, the New York authorities buried 16 people who had died of the disease at the southern tip of the island of Hart since, wrongly, it was then believed that this disease could infect others bodies.
In any case, De Blasio has insisted that it is a contingency plan and that his objective is for the city to be prepared for what may happen.
“If we need to do temporary burials to overcome the crisis and then work with each family to make the arrangements, we have the capacity to do so,” he said.
Signs of stabilization of the pandemic in New York
Despite the macabre plans, the numbers of infections and deaths in New York state gave signs of stabilization on Monday for the second consecutive day, which in the opinion of the authorities would indicate that the disease may have reached its peak.
In the last 24 hours, 599 people died in the state of New York from the coronavirus, practically the same number as the previous day, when 594 had perished, in what was the first daily drop in deaths recorded in that region, which a day earlier it had lost 630 people.
Meanwhile, between Sunday and Monday, the rate of new hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care and intubation decreased.
“Those are all good signs and may again suggest a flattening of the curve,” said state governor Andrew Cuomo at his press conference, who insisted that the trend still needs to be confirmed.
More than 10,000 deaths in the United States
As New York State tries to flatten the contagion curve, as a whole, the United States surpassed 10,000 coronavirus deaths on Monday, placing it in the third country with the most human losses behind Italy and Spain, according to Johns Hopkins University. .
The new data is known after President Donald Trump, during his usual daily press conference, made sure that “this will probably be the hardest week, between this week and next, and there will be a lot of death.”
Trump has been widely criticized within the United States for his handling of the tragedy, and especially for failing to provide adequate help to hospitals serving the sickest population.
This Monday, a report by an entity dedicated to supervising the Government confirmed that hospitals across the country are facing a serious lack of medical supplies, such as masks or gloves, which could end up endangering health workers and patients.
Hospitals also don’t have enough thermometers, toilet paper, food, disinfectants, or sheets, according to the report.
Numerous governors and other local authorities in the United States have already denounced the lack of medical supplies, a complaint to which Trump has played down.
