Mark D. Levine
@MarkLevineNYC
It’s not just deaths in hospitals which are up. On an average day before this crisis there were 20-25 deaths at home in NYC. Now in the midst of this pandemic the number is 200-215. Every day.

Early on in this crisis we were able to swab people who died at home, and thus got a coronavirus reading. But those days are long gone. We simply don't have the testing capacity for the large numbers dying at home.

Now only those few who had a test confirmation before dying are marked as victims of coronavirus on their death certificate. This almost certainly means we are undercounting the total number of victims of this pandemic.

And still the number of bodies continues to increase. The freezers at OCME facilities in Manhattan and Brooklyn will soon be full. And then what?

Soon we'll start “temporary interment”. This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). 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.

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.
OCME is going to need much more staff to achieve that goal.

Thankfully the Dept. of Defense and the NY National Guard have already sent teams, and volunteer medical examiners have come from around the country. But we are going to need much more help if we're going to avoid disaster.

As New York City continues to appeal to the nation for help, we need to ask not just for doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists. We also need mortuary affairs staff. This is tough to talk about and maybe tough to ask for. But we have no choice. The stakes are too high.

To recap: Nothing matters more in this crisis than saving the living. But we need to face the gruesome reality that we need more resources to manage our dead as well. Or the pain of this crisis will be compounded almost beyond comprehension.

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"It's their latest hoax. I don't think they need 30,000 ventilators." -Donald Trump