NYC Could Start 'Temporary Interment' For The Dead In Public Park, City Council Member Says; Mayor Denies

Topline: New York City could start start burying the dead in a public park, according to City Council Health Committee chair Mark Levine in a Twitter thread on Monday, citing overwhelmed morgues and funeral homes, but Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Chief Medical Examiner say that such a contingency plan is not under consideration at this time.

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• Levine wrote that the city's healthcare system is "being pushed to the limit" and "so is the city's system for managing our dead."
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• According to Levine, the city's morgues, funeral homes and cemeteries are at capacity and are "dealing w/the equivalent of an ongoing 9/11" due to a large increase in both hospitals deaths and deaths at home.
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• "Temporary interment," Levine wrote, will be likely done in a city park, and "trenches will be dug for ten caskets in a line."
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• A spokesperson for the Chief Medical Examiner's office said the use of a public park was part of the city's longstanding disaster preparedness plan, and that they were unaware of any decisions to activate that part of the plan.
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• The Chief Medical Examiner's office also said that Hart Island, the longtime potter's field for burying the city's unclaimed dead, will continue to be used for this purpose for coronavirus.
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• A spokesperson for Levine confirmed what the council member wrote in the Twitter thread, but Levine later clarified that the park interment was a contingency that "if the death rate drops enough, [it] will not be necessary."

Chief critic: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said plans to use a park for burials had not been activated. "If we need to do temporary burials to be able to tide us over to pass the crisis and then work with each family on their appropriate arrangements, we have the ability to do that," de Blasio said, according to the New York Times. But the city is "not at the point that we're going to go into that."

Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a Monday press conference that he hadn't heard anything about the city burying the dead in parks.

Big number: Over 3,000. That's how many people have died in New York City due to coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The number accounts for one third of nationwide COVID-19 deaths as of Monday morning.

Key background: New York emerged early as the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, with over one third of the over 312,000 cases across the country. Overflowing morgues have prompted officials to send refrigerated trucks to hold the dead. Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered the statewide public and private hospital systems to work together to share resources and the patient load. Some overwhelmed hospitals have reportedly implemented "do not resuscitate" policies for COVID-19 patients to reduce exposure to the virus for healthcare workers.

Tangent: New York City parks have been previously used for burials. Manhattan's famous Bryant Park and Washington Square Park were potter's fields at different points in the city's history.

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