By: Jared Evan
If the death rate from the novel coronavirus doesn’t drop soon, New York City could start digging trenches in a city park to temporarily bury the bodies of those who have died from COVID-19, a city councilman said Monday in a grim tweet which shocked New Yorkers.
“This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right),” Mark Levine, the chair of the New York city council health committee tweeted.
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 added: “The goal is to avoid scenes like those in Italy, where the military was forced to collect bodies from churches and even off the streets.”
In a follow-up tweet, Levine clarified that the park burials were a “contingency plan” that would not have to be implemented if the death rate drops enough to not be necessary.
Officials are apparently running as far away as possible from Councilman Levine’s idea.
“I’ve heard a lot of wild rumors, but I’ve heard nothing about the city burying people in parks,” Cuomo said during his daily press conference on Monday.
De Blasio did not seem to know about this bizarre plan to bury people in public parks either.
The WSJ reported: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that, due to the hundreds of people dying daily from the novel coronavirus, officials may resort to “temporary burials” to deal with the strain placed on mortuary services and funeral homes.
The mayor was reluctant to go into much detail about the city’s plan for such burials, saying only that they were prepared to deal with the grim prospect of burying covid-19 victims where they could later be tracked and removed for burial elsewhere once the crisis has passed.
Historically Hart’s Island or “Potter’s field” has been used for people who are too poor to afford a burial, and that location would seem like a logical place to use for temporary burials however the mayor mentioned no specific locations.
Shortly after Levine’s tweet and de Blasio’s tight lipped press conference an outlet called the US Sun reported: a source from NYC Mayor de Blasio’s office told the Sun that parks will not be used for burials, but the City has used Hart’s Island in the past and could do so again amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Hart’s Island is close to the Bronx and already has 1 million poor New Yorkers from decades upon decades buried.
