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New York City has expanded its morgue capacity by about 75% in the past week, with additional space being added as needed, according to city and federal officials.
A mobile morgue has been set up outside the Medical Examiner’s offices, near Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood. Trucks have been placed outside other hospitals throughout the city, including Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens and Brooklyn Hospital Center in the borough’s downtown area.
Together, these have increased the city’s capacity for corpses by about 2,700.
Without the makeshift morgues, the city can accommodate between 800 and 900 bodies, Aja Worthy-Davis, the executive director for the Office of Public Affairs for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, told MarketWatch on Monday.
“Between the tent and the refrigerated trucks, we have space for between 3,500 and 3,600,” Worthy-Davis said.
In addition, morgue capacity may grow in the coming days, Thomas Von Essen, FEMA’s regional administrator for New York and New Jersey and the former Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, said in a news conference Monday.
“We are sending refrigerated trucks to New York to help with some of the problem on a temporary basis,” he said. “The military has sent 42 folks to the Manhattan medical examiner’s office to help over there…New York City has a desperate need for help over in Queens. We’re working on that as we speak.”
There are no plans to use some of the city’s large venues, like Madison Square Garden, for added morgue space, he said. It is also premature to look outside the city, Worthy-Davis noted.
Across New York state, there have been 66,497 reported cases of the virus, with 1,218 deaths and 9,517 people hospitalized, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news conference Monday. More than 4,200 patients have been discharged. New York City had 33,768 reported coronavirus cases, with at least 790 deaths, according to the city.
“We have what we need to deal with this absolutely tragic situation,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a news conference Sunday night. “Our job now is to focus on what we need to do to save lives.”
People handling the decedents are not at risk, according to Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“There is no indication at this point in time — based on experience from other countries, based on science that’s been published — that there is any risk to individuals [handling decedents] from this respiratory illness,” Barbot explained during a Sunday news conference with de Blasio. “It’s a disease spread by droplets, and after someone is deceased, there is no risk.”
