As New York City struggles to keep up with thousands of infected coronavirus patients filling hospitals across the area, morgues are near capacity for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
On Wednesday, state officials briefed the Department of Homeland Security on the shortage of space for bodies, and a FEMA representative said the city, along with Hawaii and North Carolina, have asked for emergency mortuary assistance.
“We have the ability to expand pretty dramatically,” New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner spokeswoman Aja Worthy-Davis told Politico. “If you look back at what we did during 9/11, we have the ability to create mobile stations that allow us to house bodies if we run out of space.”
The morgue capacity in New York City is already small, with room for only 900 bodies across five boroughs. The lack of resources has forced healthcare providers such as Bellevue Hospital to set up a makeshift morgue to house patients who have died from the flu-like disease that has shuttered businesses and hampered movement worldwide.
On March 20, Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo instructed all nonessential residents to stay home and has repeatedly stressed the need for medical equipment to deal with the sharp rise in coronavirus patients.
New York City has been the epicenter of the disease in the United States, with more than 17,500 people listed as infected by a Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
