<![CDATA[As coronavirus victims overwhelm New York funeral homes, traditions are delayed and denied]>

These days, as Wilson Mak drifts off to sleep after another 14-hour day at a New York funeral home, images of Covid-19 victims flash through his mind.

"When I close my eyes, I still see those ugly sights," says Mak, manager of Ng Fook Funeral Services in New York City. "It's unbearable."

Ng Fook's four funeral homes in the city's various Chinese communities are a microcosm of an overwhelmed industry as corpses pile up in hallways, trucks and makeshift morgues across hotspots of the disease in the US.

The backlog has forced authorities to ship bodies to distant crematoriums and curtail funeral services, especially in New York state, where its 25,623 coronavirus deaths exceed the total of most nations.

Still, the bodies keep coming. "The cemeteries, the crematoriums, they're all backed up. The hospitals don't want to keep them. We're stuck in the middle," says Mak, who was born in Hong Kong. "I've never worked so hard in my life and still can't get it done."

Covid-19 has infected more than 1.2 million Americans and killed more than 73,000, exposing the deadly cost of White House mismanagement, a fractured health care system and political pressure to reopen the economy.

Even as US President Donald Trump has praised his administration's response, the federal government has quietly ordered 100,000 more body bags and opened bidding for some 200 "mobile mortuary trailers".

Funeral directors in New York City face delays of up to three weeks securing a spot in cemeteries or crematoriums. Early this month, officials revoked a Brooklyn funeral home's licence after neighbours complained of stench and dripping fluids from two parked trucks containing dozens of decomposing bodies.

"I'm sure more than one funeral home is doing that in trucks," Mak said. "It just so happens that people complained."

He recounts a close call recently when he noticed the wrong plaque on a casket. "Thank God it was just the nameplate and not the body," he says. ''We all make mistakes. But one body wrong means two bodies wrong. Thank God we didn't cremate the wrong body."

Practices once hidden from view are more frequent and more obvious. Viral drone footage shows cardboard caskets piled three high in mass graves on Hart's Island, an enclave used for 150 years to bury the unclaimed and indigent of New York City.

At some cemeteries, new rules keep family members in their cars watching burials from a distance. Funeral directors from as far away as Australia offer help, while crematoriums burn bodies 24/7 and discourage wooden caskets, which incinerate slower than cloth or particle board.

A proposal to bury corpses temporarily in city parks, reminiscent of 19th century yellow fever outbreaks, was scuttled after a backlash, even as mortuary science students are recruited to handle hospital remains and rented refrigerated trucks double as hospital morgues.

The number of bodies handled by Hannemann Funeral Home in Nyack, north of New York City is up 500 per cent. For the first time in 36 years, owner Keith Taylor has turned families away.

It is heartbreaking, he says, but accepting more than you can handle does not help anyone. "I just can't bury everyone," he adds. "I'm not that money hungry."

John D'Arienzo, director at the D'Arienzo Funeral Home in Brooklyn, says he is working so hard, he forgets to eat and has lost 20 pounds.

Even as New York's daily death toll falls below 300, from over 800, US mortality is rising. "We can't get numb," said Mayor Bill de Blasio in early May.

Particularly difficult, funeral directors say, are multiple deaths in the same family.

Recently, Taylor retrieved a man's body only to be asked to delay the funeral because the deceased's wife was on a ventilator. Not unexpectedly, she died a few days later. Another family had it even harder. "We had a husband, wife and daughter all die within eight days," Taylor says. "It's just crazy."

The relentless pace has seen funeral homes eliminate memorial services altogether " bodies are instead shipped directly from hospitals to cemeteries or crematoriums " or restrict them to no more than 10 people meeting for a few minutes with a closed casket.

The importance of social distancing was underscored after funerals in Illinois and Georgia in February turned into "super spreader" events that infected hundreds of others. Workers have become "funeral director police" gently reminding mourners to keep apart, Taylor says.

People pray as the remains of Mohammed Chowdhury, who died of complications related to Covid-19, are brought out of the funeral home in New York. Photo: AP alt=People pray as the remains of Mohammed Chowdhury, who died of complications related to Covid-19, are brought out of the funeral home in New York. Photo: AP

And, in a sign of the times, sympathy cards are selling out while eVital, New York's computerised death certificate system, has repeatedly crashed.

Ng Fook's is among the few city funeral parlours still offering a full range of services despite handling 100 funerals a week, up from 25 normally, including food offerings to help souls on their journey, embalming, open casket viewings and burial blanket ceremonies.

But they are stripped down, Mak adds, given that florists are closed, Buddhist monks are afraid to chant and there is no leeway to schedule around lucky dates.

"What used to be spread out over several days is now less than an hour and then it's directly to the crematorium," he says. "With all the restaurants closed, we can't even get chicken, pork or rice. We try and make vegetarian dishes."

Technology has jumped in to fill the breach. Zoom, Google Hangout and other platforms have fuelled an explosion in online funerals " although rarely among his Chinese-American clients, Mak notes " with plans for in-person memorials later.

And funeral apps are getting a closer look, including "Resting Here", which helps mourners remember what part of forests or meadows they disperse ashes.

A biohazard sign indicates that a casket contains a Covid-19 victim. Photo: AFP alt=A biohazard sign indicates that a casket contains a Covid-19 victim. Photo: AFP

Given the likelihood of many more deaths and severe constraints on grieving, or even visiting dying relatives, grief experts warn that society could suffer mass depression and reduced empathy, particularly if the pandemic is prolonged.

"It takes a while to bubble to the surface," says Jack Lechner, president of the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, the nation's oldest, and a former superintendent at Arlington National Cemetery. "If you have cultural mores that are denied, you'll have problems later."

Hoping to help families that take relatives to the hospital and never see them again, Taylor has taken to photographing the body for them. Others hope the crisis will force people to deal with death more openly.

"When we see mass death, it forces us to confront our own mortality," says Bryant Hightower, owner of Martin & Hightower Funeral Home in Carrollton, Georgia, who worked at New York's ground zero after the September 11 terrorist attacks. "Will we deal with it or put our head in the sand?"

Joelle Rollo-Koster, a University of Rhode Island history professor, sees echoes of the Black Death, including our obsession with counting the deceased " arguably giving us some sense of control amid the chaos " and the loss felt over not celebrating a "good death" surrounded by loved ones. "There's something shocking about dying alone," she says.

Not that members of the industry are always great at grappling with their own mortality. "I'd bet you less than 50 per cent of funeral directors have wills," says Hightower, president of the 20,000-member National Funeral Directors Association. "Sometimes we're good at telling people what they should do."

Despite unprecedented demand, revenues are down given inexpensive cremations, fewer high-end caskets and other profitable extras. This echoes more structural concerns as large corporations absorb family operations and there is difficulty recruiting workers increasingly wary of the long hours. "Students aren't coming into it to get rich but to help," says Lechner.

Funeral workers quietly bridle at the lack of public recognition or preferential access to protective equipment they experience relative to medical workers and other widely recognised first responders.

Deaths from cancer, heart disease and other causes are not slowing down, meanwhile, leaving some families frustrated that their funeral plans have been disrupted by a virus their loved ones did not contract. "In our industry, it never stops raining," says Mak. "This is a bad time to die."

Always lurking are the personal risks. Workers who traditionally retrieved bodies in business attire to avoid upsetting family members now wear hazmat suits. And it is taking more workers to retrieve bodies from hospitals, given their added weight from swelling after weeks on respirators.

Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a potter's field on Hart Island in New York. Photo: AP alt=Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a potter's field on Hart Island in New York. Photo: AP

While the risk of contagion from corpses appears relatively low, researchers in Thailand have reported the first Covid-19 transmission from dead to living hosts, while the World Health Organisation advises against embalming and discourages mourners from kissing bodies.

Workers routinely spray and insert cotton into the corpse's mouth and nose on site rather than behind mortuary doors to prevent infected gas from exiting the lungs. "There's still so much that's not known," says Hightower.

Mak never expected to become a undertaker. Raised in Hong Kong's Shau Kei Wan district, he moved to the US for college before joining his sister and brother-in-law's funeral business in 1985. As New York's immigrant Chinese population grew, the family expanded to four sites.

While most immigrants follow Chinese funeral traditions, over time they become increasingly Westernised and, by the second or third generation, even embarrassed at how little they know, Mak says, although most continue burning paper money. "I'm worried the next generation will lose all the traditions," he says.

As Mak nears the end of another long day, he reflects on the past two months. "Nobody signed up for this," he says. "But we still have to go on and fight."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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