Funeral director Wayne Bright has seen the pain build up during the new wave of COVID-19.
One woman died of the virus and when her family was planning the funeral, her mother also died due to COVID-19. An aunt took care of the arrangements for the double funeral, but she also died of coronavirus just two weeks later.
“It was one of the most devastating things I’ve ever seen,” said Bright, who also took charge last week of the funeral of one of his closest friends.
Florida is in the midst of the deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, a disaster driven by the most contagious coronavirus delta variant.
Although the vaccination rate in Florida is slightly higher than the national rate, the state has a large proportion of seniors, who are especially vulnerable to viruses, a vibrant revelry scene, and a Republican governor who has adopted a tough opposition to the requirements of masks, vaccine passports and business closures.
By mid-August the state had an average of 244 daily deaths, compared to just 23 a day in late June and eclipsing the peak of 227 during the summer of 2020. (Due to the way they are recorded deaths in Florida and delays in reporting, the most recent figures are incomplete).
Hospitals have had to rent refrigerated trucks to place corpses. Funeral homes are overwhelmed.
Cristina Milers, a mother of five in Orange Park, is one of the people who has faced more than one loss in a short time. Her husband, Austin, died of COVID-19 and less than two weeks later, her mother-in-law succumbed to the virus.
“I feel like we’re in a weird dream,” she said, adding that her children are grieving differently, with one of them absorbing themselves, another inspired to pass a difficult swimming exam and the eldest following her life as if nothing had happened.
Hospitals have been flooded with patients who, like Miles ’husband and mother-in-law, had not been vaccinated.
On a positive note, the number of people in Florida hospitals with COVID-19 has dropped in the past two weeks from more than 17,000 to 14,200 on Friday, indicating that the outbreak is slowing.
Florida made an active early effort to vaccinate its seniors. But Dr. Kartik Cherabuddi, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Florida, said the number of people who have not been vaccinated remains high, given the population of older adults in Florida, at 4.6 million.
“Even 10% is a very high number and then people who live with them and are in contact with them are not vaccinated,” Cherabuddi said. “With the delta, things spread very quickly.”