NYC may temporarily bury coronavirus victims in parks
Some coronavirus victims could be temporarily buried in the Hart Island potter’s field — or even public parks — if New York’s morgues become overwhelmed by the number of dead, officials said Monday.
They floated the heart-wrenching option as the city death toll climbed to 2,738 and the caseload hit 68,776 — accounting for more than half of the Empire State’s 4,758 fatalities and 130,689 cases.
“We may well be dealing with temporary burials so we can deal with each family later,” said Mayor de Blasio in a press briefing at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. “Obviously the place we have used historically is Hart Island.”
Located in the Long Island Sound off The Bronx’s southeast coast, the desolate spit of land is the nation’s largest public burial ground, with a macabre history. It has hosted a Civil War prison camp, a colony for tuberculosis patients and became the resting place for thousands of HIV/AIDS victims during the 1980s who were abandoned by families or unable to receive proper burials.
Mayor de Blasio — who has been loath to publicly discuss how New York would handle the overwhelming body count — faced the ghastly reality after City Councilman Mark Levine raised an even more dire possibility.
“Soon we’ll start ‘temporary interment.’ This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right),” the Manhattan Democrat tweeted prior to de Blasio’s remarks.
“Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line.
“It will be done in a dignified, orderly — and temporary — manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take.”
Levine, the chair of the Council’s Health Committee, clarified in a later tweet that the plan to convert parks in makeshift cemeteries was a “contingency,” and City Hall said that it wasn’t happening — for now.
“We are NOT currently planning to use local parks as burial grounds,” tweeted mayoral rep Freddi Goldstein. “We are exploring using Hart Island for temporary burials, if the need grows.”
As New Yorkers were still dying by the hundreds, Gov. Cuomo on Monday again voiced guarded optimism that the wave may be cresting.
After a record 630 deaths were logged Saturday, the number fell to 594 Sunday, and stayed “effectively flat” with 599 on Monday.
“The flattening — possible flattening — of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen,” said Cuomo in his daily Albany press briefing.
Longtime Cuomo aide Dr. Jim Malatras agreed that New York may be turning a corner.
“This could suggest that we are indeed, potentially, at the apex,” said Malatras, while cautioning that this is far from over. “It looks like we are towards the earlier side of the projection.”
If the disease is truly hitting its apex, it comes just in time for New York’s overtaxed hospitals.
“This is a hospital system where we have our foot to the floor,” Cuomo said. “The engine is at redline, and you can’t go any faster. You can’t stay at redline for any period of time, because the system will blow.”
To ease the pressure, President Trump on Monday granted Cuomo’s request for the hospital ship docked along Manhattan’s West Side — the USNS Comfort — to take on COVID-19 patients.
The 1,000-bed vessel was originally reserved for noncoronavirus patients, but hadn’t seen many cases in the shut-down city.
“That is a welcome relief,” Cuomo told MSNBC of the move.
– Additional reporting by Rich Calder, Kevin Sheehan, Ebony Bowden
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/nyc-to-begin-temporarily-burying-coronavirus-victims-in-local-parks/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Roseanne Barr: Coronavirus a scheme to ‘get rid of all my generation’
Answering the question that no one asked, Roseanne Barr’s back, baby!
The comic spoke with Norm Macdonald Sunday night for the latter’s “Quarantined With Norm Macdonald,” a YouTube talk show, and naturally, the conversation turned towards the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think they’re just trying to get rid of all my generation,” Barr’s meandering thesis begins. “The boomer ladies that, you know, that inherited their, you know, are widows. They inherited the money so they got to go wherever the money is and figure out a way to get it from people.”
“That would be a good thriller,” Macdonald responds.
In case you were wondering how Barr’s handling things, she’s apparently holed up in Hawaii, where “we have one [coronavirus] case on the island” and 99 percent of the residents are sequestered and “doing what they are supposed to do.” (Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus map for the US claims that there are 371 confirmed cases of the illness across the Hawaiian islands.)
Oh, and she “[has] the time now to research and come up with the perfect lawsuit,” Barr says. Unsurprisingly, it’s related to her 2018 canceling — both figurative and literal — which she memorably blamed on Ambien, and, subsequently, anti-Semitism and her costar Sara Gilbert (in that order). It will be aimed at, broadly, Hollywood, so that Barr can “f–k over everybody in the f–king world over there.”
At least we have something to look forward to now.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Wash. state’s rising virus infection rate a ’cause for concern,’ Inslee says
SEATTLE – As President Donald Trump and members of his Coronavirus Task Force praise Washington’s social distancing efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, Gov. Jay Inslee remains somewhat skeptical when it comes to the work being done.
Inslee had previously said that the increasing positive case rate is something that concerns him and that the full weight of the virus has yet to be seen.
“These positive percentages are going up which is a cause for concern,” he said.
Over the course of the last four days, the overall positive case rate for the state has gone from 8 percent to 8.6 percent. Two weeks ago, it stood at just 7 percent.
KOMO News has reached out to the state Department of Health and its Joint Information Center, hoping to get more context behind what may be to blame. Here’s part of an email that was received from the JIC:
“Thanks for reaching out. You asked about the positive case rate going up – and we want to create some clarity around that. Testing for COVID-19 is steadily increasing across the state, which gives us a clearer window into the virus’ spread.
While we’ve slowed it down with our social distancing measures, we haven’t stopped it. Current modeling shows that while we anticipate more cases, our hospital systems wigll be able to handle the influx of patients expected in the coming weeks.“
However, on the state’s dashboard showing the latest COVID-19 stats and figures, testing appears to have dropped off significantly over the course of the last few days. KOMO News has asked if there continues to be a bottleneck in getting test results processed or if there are still difficulties with the website
A second concern the governor has focused on is the virus’ impact on some rural counties.
In Benton County, for example, county data showed five deaths and 56 cases as of Saturday, March 28. As of Saturday, April 5, that number has exploded to at least 13 deaths and 266 cases.
Inslee on Thursday extended his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order through May 4. In determining what it will take to lift that order, he says he’ll be looking at things like daily infection rates, hospital patterns, traffic patterns and to see if people continue to practice social distancing.
“The virus has a say in this and what it does is something we’ll be watching very closely every single day,” Inslee said Thursday.
“We will be intensely dissecting all of the data to determine whether or not we can be confident we’ve wrestled this beast to the ground.”
KOMO READ MORE COVID19 IN WASHINGTION———————————————————> https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/wash-states-rising-virus-infection-rate-a-cause-for-concern-inslee-says
Elfen’s Throwback Sunday Simply Red Holding Back The Years
I remember when this song came out. Very deep and thought provoking. During this time of quarantine this is a good song to listen to.
6-year-old Tennessee boy with cystic fibrosis recovers from COVID-19
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (Meredith) — A 6-year-old boy with cystic fibrosis who had tested positive for COVID-19 has declared he has since recovered from the virus in a viral video.
Joseph Bostain had come down with a fever and cough and was quarantined in the family’s home, according to his mother Sabrina Bostain. He was taken to the hospital shortly after where he was diagnosed with the virus.
After numerous updates, the 6-year-old announced he had beaten the virus in a video his mother had posted to Facebook on April 1.
“I’m a cystic fibrosis warrior and I beat COVID-19!,” Joseph says in the video.
His mother also thanked everyone for their support of Joseph and his family.
For information on COVID-19, you can visit the CDC’s website.
Photo Credit: kmov.com