LOS ANGELES (AP) – As communities across the country feel the pain of a wave of coronavirus cases, Southern California hotbed funeral homes say they should set aside grieving families while they stay without space for bodies to accumulate.
The head of the state association of funeral directors says mortuaries are flooded as the United States approaches a sum of 350,000 deaths from COVID-19. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
“I’ve been working in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think this could happen, that I should say to a family,‘ No, we can’t take your family member, ’” said Magda Maldonado, owner of the Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles.
Continental makes an average of 30 body extractions a day, six times its normal rate. Mortuary owners call each other to see if anyone can handle the overflow and the answer is always the same: they’re full too.
In order to keep up with the flood of bodies, Maldonado has rented additional 15-foot refrigerators for two of the four facilities he runs in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. Continental has also been delaying hospital pick-ups by a day or two while dealing with residential customers.
Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Association, said the entire process of burying and cremating bodies has slowed down, including embalming bodies and obtaining death certificates. During normal periods, cremation can occur in a day or two; now it takes at least a week or more.
Achermann said that in the southern part of the state, “every funeral home I talk to says, ‘We’re rowing as fast as we can.’
“The volume is amazing and they’re afraid they can’t keep up,” he said. “And the worst of the increase could still be ahead of us.”
Los Angeles County, the epicenter of the crisis in California, has surpassed just 10,000 deaths from COVID-19. Hospitals in the area are overflowing and have difficulty keeping up with basic aspects such as oxygen, as they treat an unprecedented number of patients with respiratory problems. On Saturday, teams from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arrived to upgrade the oxygen supply systems of some hospitals.
Nationwide, an average of just over 2,500 people have died from COVID-19 in the past seven days, according to data from Johns Hopkins. The number of daily cases recorded recently in this period averaged close to 195,000, a decrease from two weeks earlier.
It is feared that holiday meetings could fuel another increase in cases.
Arkansas officials reported Friday a record of more than 4,300 new cases of COVID-19. Gov. Asa Hutchinson tweeted that the state “is surely booming after Christmas travel and meetings” and added: “As we enter this new year, our first resolution should follow the guidelines. “.
North Carolina officials also reported record 9,527 confirmed cases on New Year’s Day. That is, more than 1,000 cases above the previous daily maximum.
In Louisiana, a funeral was held Saturday for an elected congressman who died of complications from COVID-19. Republican Luke Letlow died Tuesday at the age of 41. His oath had been scheduled for Sunday. He leaves behind his wife, Julia Letlow, and two children ages 1 and 3.
In Texas, state officials say they only have 580 intensive care beds available, as staff treat more than 12,480 patients hospitalized with coronavirus, a number that has steadily risen since September and set record highs last week.
In Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo nation stayed in the middle of a weekend closure to try to curb the infection rate. On Friday afternoon, the tribe reported seven more deaths, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 23,429 cases and 813 deaths. The reservation includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
The number of infections is believed to be much higher than reported because many people have not been tested and studies suggest that you can become infected with the virus without feeling sick.
On Saturday, Arizona reported 18,943 new cases on Friday and Saturday, a record for the state in any two-day period. 46 new deaths were also reported on Saturday.