The New York governor signed an order to bring in additional funeral directors as the number of coronavirus cases in the state outpaced all countries except the United States, CNN reported.
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order will make it easier for licensed funeral directors from other states to practice in New York.
At least 16,686 people have died of coronavirus in the U.S. – nearly half of them in New York. Of the 466,299 total confirmed cases nationwide, about 162,000 are in New York, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.
The U.S. is set to reach its highest daily number of deaths on or around Sunday, according to models by the prominent Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
It is estimated that 60,415 in the country would die of coronavirus by August, assuming social distancing policies continue through May. That projection is down from the 82,000 it predicted earlier this week.
Even though the model lowered its nationwide numbers, it issued key differences by region and state. For example, New York saw an increase in total projected deaths.
The New York City’s office of Chief Medical Examiner issued a memo extending the time a body is kept in custody to 14 days. Hart Island, which has served as a public cemetery for decades, is serving as a resting place for unclaimed coronavirus victims, New York officials said.
Queens funeral director Patrick Kearns said the extension will help with the influx of victims. He’s receiving 30 to 40 calls a day, he said, the same number he’d get in a typical month before the pandemic hit, CNN noted.
In New York, Cuomo said Thursday that the number of people hospitalized in the state is going down but deaths have gone up. He described the deaths as a lagging indicator, saying those who don’t make it tend to have been hospitalized the longest.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, echoed a similar sentiment. “At the same time as we’re seeing the increase in deaths, we’re seeing a rather dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalizations,” Fauci said. “That means that what we are doing is working and therefore we need to continue to do it.”
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