Temporary Burials May Begin for COVID-19 Victims, Possibly in Trenches in NYC Parks: Levine

New York City will soon need to face the "gruesome reality" of temporary burials, and they could take place in trenches dug in city parks, NYC Council Health Committee chair Mark Levine said in a tweet Monday morning.

Due to the number of dead bodies increasing on a daily basis due to COVID-19, the freezers at OCME facilities in Manhattan and Brooklyn will soon be full, Levine said.

This means that the city could have to turn to temporary internment in city parks, Levine said. "Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line. It will be done in a dignified, orderly -- and temporary -- manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take," he wrote.

Soon after -- as the tweet gained attention -- the chair added that trenches in parks were only a contingency the city was preparing for. "But if the death rate drops enough it will not be necessary." The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told NBC 4 it was a scenario in the OCME disaster plan, but not something currently being considered or planned for. The mayor said Monday that temporary burials were something the city "may well be dealing with," but would not go into further detail.

In the initial multi-part tweet thread Monday, Levine said the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner "city morgue," hospital morgues, funeral homes and cemeteries were dealing with the equivalent of an ongoing 9/11. Using city parks for temporary burials would avoid scenes like those in Italy, Levine said, where the military was seen collecting bodies from churches and even off the streets.

The Department of Defense and New York's National Guard had already sent teams to assist with internment of the dead, and volunteer medical examin... (Read more)

Tweets mentioned:

https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1247181795076046854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1247156970169270272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1247155334776578048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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