W.J. Hennigan used to be a war reporter. But, he says, 'nothing really prepared me for the level of devastation and the amount of death' he faced while embedded with the workers caring for the bodies of some 20,000 New Yorkers who've died of COVID-19.
If it wasn't handled this way and if they weren't able to expand all their operations, bodies would have to be buried in a mass grave. I mean, that's just the reality. And people within the death care system told me that ... we were very close to going off the rails here.Burials On New York Island Are Not New, But Are Increasing During Pandemic
In the early days of the pandemic they were ... so inundated with corpses that they were just incapable of holding them all. And this is before these emergency disaster morgues were established. There are now four of them across New York City, in addition to the five brick-and-mortar facilities that the New York medical examiner's office operates. What the medical examiner had done is said,"We can't hold these corpses any longer.
There's been a lot of coverage on the front-line health care workers, and I think that makes sense. They make people well, or at least try to. But what's not been really as widely covered or understood, it is the death-care side of things. Because the flip side of any pandemic is the death, and how that work is is being handled.
I think it's more of a philosophical question of the American psyche, of why we don't reflect on that, the sheer numbers of deaths that we've had in this country. I think there is an expectation and a hope that we get beyond this and maybe we don't want to confront the death. In a lot of ways, maybe we haven't really processed the numbers.
Amy Salit and Seth Kelley produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper and Deborah Franklin adapted it for the Web.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
What Will Happen to Our Mental Health After the COVID-19 Pandemic?With so much grief and tragedy compounding the loneliness so many of us felt before, it begs the question: What will our collective mental health look like when we emerge from this crisis? MentalHealthAwarenessMonth
Read more »
In Homes Left Empty By COVID-19, This Georgia Woman Packs Up The MemoriesCathy Cody lives in one of the hardest-hit areas by COVID-19, and she has one of the hardest jobs, too — boxing up the possessions of those who died of the virus. 'The families we have been assisting are people I know,' Cody says. 'It's heartbreaking.'
Read more »
Medical experts raise doubts about Hydroxychloroquine use for Covid-19The World Health Organization’s suspension of trials due to safety concerns follows endorsements by leaders including US President Donald Trump.
Read more »
Trump Team Killed Rule Designed To Protect Health Workers From Pandemic Like COVID-19Federal records show OSHA worked for six years to create new rules to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic. The Obama White House formally added it to a list of regulations to be implemented in 2017. Then President Trump took office.
Read more »
A pregnant doctor navigates COVID-19 fight in low income LAAfter putting a coronavirus patient onto a ventilator to help him to breathe, Dr. Zafia Anklesaria noted to herself that her baby never kicked during emergency procedures.
Read more »
Armed with massive data pools, genealogy companies Ancestry, 23andMe begin COVID-19 researchWhy do some people get severely ill and die from COVID-19, while others have mild symptoms or none at all? Scientists hope to use the genomes they've collected from millions of people to find a genetic explanation to answer that question.
Read more »