NYC morgues near capacity, DHS briefing warns

[Dennis Donovan]

Source: Politico

The Department of Homeland Security has been briefed that New York City’s morgues are nearing capacity, according to a department official and a second person familiar with the situation.

Officials were told that morgues in the city are expected to reach capacity next week, per the briefing. A third person familiar with the situation in New York said that some of the city’s hospital morgues hit capacity over the last seven days.

If the available morgue space in New York City fills up as the number of COVID-19 deaths increases, federal help will be available, a former senior administration official said, noting that the George W. Bush administration sent mortuary assistance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attacks.

The Department of Health and Human Services oversees the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams (DMORT), which can help set up temporary morgues. The teams operate in response to requests from local authorities.



Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/dhs-briefing-nyc-morgues-near-capacity-148259

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For now, city officials do not seem especially alarmed. Aja Worthy-Davis, a spokesperson for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), said concerns about morgue capacity may be unfounded. In Manhattan alone, she said, OCME’s morgue can store up to 900 bodies. The city has a morgue for each of the five boroughs, she said.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I bet George W. Bush did - remember FuneralGate?

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#funeral

n a (so far successful) attempt to stop a scandal, Bush perjured himself under oath, according to the sworn testimony of two of his political allies. The situation is amazingly similar to Clinton's Lewinsky problem: a potentially damaging lawuit arose (see below) that threatened to involve him. Just like Clinton, Bush swore an affidavit that he had no involvement in the case, which got him excused from testifying. And just like Clinton, the affidavit was proven false months later by new evidence. In this case, it's the recent sworn testimony of Robert MacNeil, a Bush appointee, that he had discussed the case with Bush at a fundraiser.

This scandal isn't as sexy as Monica's, but perjury is perjury, and this scandal actually involves the governor's job, not his sex life. Texas' state commission on funeral homes (the TFSC) started an investigation of SCI, the world's largest funeral home company (with 3,442 homes, plus 433 cemeteries) after complaints that unlicensed apprenctices were embalming corpses at 2 SCI embalming centers. The commission visited a couple of these, and ended up fining SCI $450,000.

But SCI pulled strings with the commission and with Bush himself. Shortly thereafter, the investigation was shut down and the agency's investigator was fired. She sought to question Bush for her lawsuit, and that's when he swore his admittedly false affidavit. In fact, that affidavit has been proven false twice now.

DETAILS: SCI has long cultivated Bush and his allies. They gave governor Bush $35,000 in the last election and $10K in 1994, gave $100,000 to the George Bush, Sr. library, and hired the ex-president to give a speech last year for $70,000. They also spread money around the Texas legislature and the Texas Attorney General's office.

More at the link

[CottonBear]

2. Spain is using ice rinks as temporary morgues. N/T

[trusty elf]

3. Trump is on top of the situation.

[Historic NY]

4. The unclaimed will head to Hart Island

for burial.

[link:https://untappedcities.com/2019/05/30/behind-the-scenes-photos-on-hart-island-nycs-mass-burial-ground/|]

[Dennis Donovan]

7. Jesus. You're right.

I'm snipping the present imagery of the island in case we see graves (en masse) being dug.

[Simeon Salus]

5. Trump Hotels are available

My understanding is that they would make perfect morgues, because everything he touches dies.

[DENVERPOPS]

6. Newest Rumor:

Trump and Jared are trying to buy Central park, excavate it completely and try to make money off anyone deposited in their Trump owned mass grave......Bragging rights for "Biggest Grave Ever" is an extra ego bonus for Lardass......

On a more serious note: Jared has probably already purchased all crematoriums and funeral parlors within a 200 mile radius of NY City.......

[Igel]

8. Increased deaths.

But I'm also assuming that funeral homes are closed or that they're not accepting some of the bodies.

That means they check in but they don't check out.

It is a question--if the virus lives for 2-3 weeks (or longer), are the bodies biohazard and disposed of that way? Kept for autopsy? Just allowed to sit until a funeral home will accept them?

[Princess Turandot]

9. NYC (sadly) has an extensive contingency plan for this...

This is a bit sensationalistic, I expect.

'Morgues' are referring to the official facilities of the NYC Medical Examiner (I assume). However, each hospital also has facilities for the deceased because of normal transportation delays, and because in the normal course of matters, only certain cases need to be sent to the ME. The hospital facilities thus will also be used.

The main ME facility in Manhattan is part of a half-mile 11-block long stretch of private, public and VA health facilities between First Avenue and the East River. If it comes to it, they have quite a bit of room for refrigeration trucks on the side streets; that's what they did post 9/11.

This is just a conjecture on my part, but given the uncertainty around the virus, concerns about infection control will be the challenge here, from the hospital mortuary to the funeral directors/morticians. I read that in China by decree of the government most of the deceased were cremated as quickly as possible, without any ceremony/funeral attended by family members. I don't see that happening here.

[Ghost Dog]

14. Why don't you see that latter happening in NYC?

Religious sensibilities?

[mitch96]

10. the casket companies are gonna make a bundle... nt

[Princess Turandot]

11. BTW Per the NYC Department of Health, the city has seen 199 deaths as of today at 9:15AM..

out of 16,788 cases treated in health facilities in NYC. I'm not sure how that would lead to a lack of capacity by next week.

[NickB79]

12. They're preparing for an Italian-style wave of deaths

We went from 1,000 cases nationally to 50,000 in 2 weeks on Monday. Today we passed 60,000.

A week from now, we'll have hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases, with New York being an epicenter.

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. They should stack any overflow in front of Trump Tower nt