About those refrigerated trucks and morgues

[PPQer]

There are discussions going around the web about how bad C-19 really is.  Pictures of refrigerated trucks for the additional bodies are being setup at hospitals "because of all the Covid deaths".  After 177 deaths in NYC, government said the morgues were filled.  I don't doubt that because the C-19 deaths were unexpected.  I haven't seen any discussion about hospital morgue capacity in NYC hospitals.

Hospital morgues aren't very big.  A 500 bed hospital may have a 4 slabs, depending on the typical expected death rate, and I suspect the mortality of the specialties practiced there.  Cancer care, geriatrics, etc.

Hospitals typically don't hold those bodies very long, and some extended care facilities for the elderly often have the bodies picked up by the morticians on the nursing floor, so the patient never even goes to the morgue.  But the families saw that coming, and made arrangements.

In this situation, where there are additional unexpected deaths, and everything being shut down the way it is, I suspect the additional unsuspected deaths and an extended turnaround time for morgue slabs are as responsible for extra capacity need as much as anything. 

NYC is reporting 914 deaths.  I don't doubt that has the morgues filled, but that isn't a lot in a city of several million.  It's still too early to tell how bad this will get.

I'm not saying go out and lick door knobs and toilet seats, but refrigerated trucks do not mean the sky is falling.

 

[SC Tiger]

19 minutes ago, PPQer said:

There are discussions going around the web about how bad C-19 really is.  Pictures of refrigerated trucks for the additional bodies are being setup at hospitals "because of all the Covid deaths".  After 177 deaths in NYC, government said the morgues were filled.  I don't doubt that because the C-19 deaths were unexpected.  I haven't seen any discussion about hospital morgue capacity in NYC hospitals.

Hospital morgues aren't very big.  A 500 bed hospital may have a 4 slabs, depending on the typical expected death rate, and I suspect the mortality of the specialties practiced there.  Cancer care, geriatrics, etc.

Hospitals typically don't hold those bodies very long, and some extended care facilities for the elderly often have the bodies picked up by the morticians on the nursing floor, so the patient never even goes to the morgue.  But the families saw that coming, and made arrangements.

In this situation, where there are additional unexpected deaths, and everything being shut down the way it is, I suspect the additional unsuspected deaths and an extended turnaround time for morgue slabs are as responsible for extra capacity need as much as anything. 

NYC is reporting 914 deaths.  I don't doubt that has the morgues filled, but that isn't a lot in a city of several million.  It's still too early to tell how bad this will get.

I'm not saying go out and lick door knobs and toilet seats, but refrigerated trucks do not mean the sky is falling.

 

Just speaking to the trailers, remember that they aren't allowed out for much right now.  That means no funerals and they probably can't even collect the body.  So what else are they going to do with the bodies?

[PPQer]

Eggzactly!!!   But Chicken Little is using those as proof that we're all going to die.  It may still be worse that some of us expect, but refrigerated trailers are not the definitive indicator.

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by PPQer

[deputy tom]

 

 

 

I found these on another site. Admin, remove if inappropriate. tom.

Edited March 31, 2020 by deputy tom

[BamaBud]

15 minutes ago, deputy tom said:

I found these on another site. Admin, remove if inappropriate. tom.

Not very efficient space usage. 40 foot trailer. 6 foot body. 6 or 7 bodies down each side, so times 2.

12 bodies, or so, per trailer.

Need shelving, or stacking, or more rows.

[deputy tom]

I'm not the one stacking those, nor do I know if it is legit. tom.

[Bish1309]

Bunk beds. Just sayin'

[PPQer]

11 minutes ago, BamaBud said:

Not very efficient space usage. 40 foot trailer. 6 foot body. 6 or 7 bodies down each side, so times 2.

12 bodies, or so, per trailer.

Need shelving, or stacking, or more rows.

That may prove the earlier point.  I suspect while they can, they need to keep them spread out so they can access them for identification or pick up.  I don't doubt they'll end up stacked at some point, but for a city of 8M, that is a relative few corpses.  And may even be unclaimed.

I also suspect that overkill is going to be better in that situation.  The last thing you need with summer approaching is a bunch of bodies you can't get rid of.

At some point, those reefers will go back to hauling food.

 

[PPQer]

https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/nyc-morgues-cemeteries-overwhelmed-amid-coronavirus-official/

NYC morgues, cemeteries overwhelmed as coronavirus death toll rises

The head of the state’s funeral directors association fears New York City could soon see dead bodies piling up due to the surge in coronavirus deaths combined with limits on cemetery shifts.

New York State Funeral Directors Association director Mike Lanotte said religious cemeteries, including ones run by the Archdiocese of New York, have put protocols in place to protect staff working in cemeteries that have led to less manpower.

“They’re not able to bury as many people in a day as they normally would and that’s a concern because if there’s a large number of cemeteries that start to do this, we’re going to start to have — for lack of a better word — a bottleneck,” Lanotte told The Post.

“You’re going to have people’s caskets, remains, unable to be buried and that could create a backlog and a public health problem.

“No one wants to see pictures like in Italy of churches with caskets stacked in them,” said Lanotte, who represents 1,700 funeral homes statewide.

A spokesman for the archdiocese did not immediately return messages.

Some of the city’s funeral homes are already “stretched to capacity” and others are “helping twice as many families as they normally would,” Lanotte said.

“There’s also unfortunately been some funeral directors who have fallen ill from COVID, adding a little bit of extra stress to the system,” he said.

Lanotte added that the city’s morgues are “at the brink if not in a state of excess capacity.”

The city currently has space for about 3,500 bodies after adding mobile morgues to handle coronavirus deaths.

The mayor and other city officials have refused to comment on how many bodies are currently in city morgues, but Monday The Post reported that FEMA is sending 85 refrigerated trucks to store the dead.

Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, the state had 425 deaths per month, according to Lanotte.

Last weekend there were 475 COVID-19 fatalities alone.

“In two days last weekend we more than exceeded our normally monthly average and that doesn’t include other deaths,” Lanotte said. “We’re anticipating that higher death rate for the foreseeable future.”

[janice6]

9 hours ago, PPQer said:

There are discussions going around the web about how bad C-19 really is.  Pictures of refrigerated trucks for the additional bodies are being setup at hospitals "because of all the Covid deaths".  After 177 deaths in NYC, government said the morgues were filled.  I don't doubt that because the C-19 deaths were unexpected.  I haven't seen any discussion about hospital morgue capacity in NYC hospitals.

Hospital morgues aren't very big.  A 500 bed hospital may have a 4 slabs, depending on the typical expected death rate, and I suspect the mortality of the specialties practiced there.  Cancer care, geriatrics, etc.

Hospitals typically don't hold those bodies very long, and some extended care facilities for the elderly often have the bodies picked up by the morticians on the nursing floor, so the patient never even goes to the morgue.  But the families saw that coming, and made arrangements.

In this situation, where there are additional unexpected deaths, and everything being shut down the way it is, I suspect the additional unsuspected deaths and an extended turnaround time for morgue slabs are as responsible for extra capacity need as much as anything. 

NYC is reporting 914 deaths.  I don't doubt that has the morgues filled, but that isn't a lot in a city of several million.  It's still too early to tell how bad this will get.

I'm not saying go out and lick door knobs and toilet seats, but refrigerated trucks do not mean the sky is falling.

 

The number of deaths daily in New York City in 2015:

In 2015 there were 153,623 That comes to 420.88 a day with heart disease and cancer as leading causes.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-die-in-New-York-every-day?share=1

Edited April 1, 2020 by janice6

[Mrs.Cicero]

It is ridiculous for the city gov't to institute regulations that slow down burials.  What moron thought that was a good idea?  The faster they bury them, the more room they will have for the next days' dead bodies in the morgues and funeral homes and/or churches.  (And why would you even think having a service in the middle of an epidemic is something whatever god you worship would require?  I wouldn't worship any god that required that kind of idiocy for me to get to whatever afterlife that god controlled.  Who wants to spend eternity with a cretin like that?)

Argh.

[PPQer]

It's often important to differentiate the words of man vs the words of G-d, and recognize when man puts words in His mouth.  I don't know any Christian who thinks you are hell bound without a proper service.  I am not familiar with muslim burial traditions but I don't doubt deBlasio is more interested in appeasing them than anyone else.  

Then there are those of the acting out, over-emotional crowd who may be of the mindset that it is racist not to get a funeral.  

We should also consider that the back log could be waiting on an autopsy or ME to sign off.  A guy at work had his mothers body held for months waiting on an autopsy, and she was in her 90's, her cause of death was pretty obvious.  

 

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by PPQer

[RenoF250]

Why do people still get buried?  Just cremate them.

[janice6]

14 minutes ago, RenoF250 said:

Why do people still get buried?  Just cremate them.

There is an underlying fear that they may be burned alive. 

Somehow being buried alive is more acceptable, except for the past when you could have a bell cord installed in your coffin so if you were buried alive, you could ring the bell and either get out, or scare the bejezzus out of people that heard the bell.

[Mongo]

Standard trailers are 53' length