CNN is running stories that mention freezer trucks parked outside hospitals because the morgue is full.
Any reports of cities opening pits for mass graves?
Archeologists are still finding mass burial sites from the medieval plagues. They’re still used is some places after a disaster.
For reference, I was watching this CNN report. The mental toll on our medical professionals will be felt for a long time.
Yes, and no. Remember the pictures from a few months ago of a mass grave in the NYC area? It turned out that was Potter’s Field, where people who can’t afford or don’t want to pay for a standard funeral are buried, and they had a routine burial of the people whose bodies had been kept in storage in the meantime.
Otherwise, I haven’t heard of mass graves, like the ones in the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa, that kind of thing.
I hope mass burials don’t become necessary. Our hospitals are at a crisis tipping point. Christmas and New Years travel will account for even more cases.
So far, it’s not there yet. I mean, in Dallas County (where Dallas, TX is), we’re still only seeing like 30 extra deaths per day from COVID. I don’t know how much strain that’s putting on the funeral home industry though, but I do know there are a lot more than 30 funeral homes in the county, so it’s probably less than one extra body to deal with per day on average.
So far so good. But for all I know, funeral homes in hard-hit parts of town could be overwhelmed, while others are chugging along like normal. The burial industry is wholly private, so there’s no distribution mechanism that I’m aware of to even it out.
There’s no practical limit to ready-made reefer trucks so morgue space doesn’t really come into play.
Other countries (Brazil & Iran spring to mind) have resorted to mass graves, but US hasn’t had to. Maybe if we did the public would take COVID19 more seriously, maybe not.