(Reuters) – Arizona and Texas counties affected by COVID-19 are ordering refrigerators and refrigerated trailers to store bodies as their morgues fill up, authorities said Thursday.
Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to the state’s largest city, Phoenix, is bringing 14 refrigerators to house up to 280 bodies and more than double the morgue capacity before the expected increase in deaths from coronavirus, officials said Thursday.
In Texas, the city of San Antonio and Bexar County have acquired five refrigerated trailers to store up to 180 bodies as some hospital and funeral mortuaries reach capacity, said Mario Martínez, assistant director of San Antonio Metro Health, in a video.
New York used dozens of refrigerated trailers in April, as their daily COVID-19 deaths exceeded 700. The emergence of mobile morgues in Arizona and Texas reflects that the pandemic appears to be out of control in the southern US states. USA
“We are likely to see death trends increase in the next two to three weeks,” Maricopa County Health Director Marcy Flanagan said at a press conference.
Maricopa COVID-19 daily cases peaked at the end of June at more than 3,000. Patients generally spend a few weeks in the hospital before dying, Flanagan said.
Texas on Thursday reported 10,457 new cases of COVID-19 and a record of 129 deaths in a single day. The state’s Cameron and Hidalgo counties also share a refrigerated trailer to store the bodies of patients with coronavirus, local press reported.
The refrigerators in Maricopa will be located in the coroner’s office, which stores about 20% of the bodies in the county. Many hospitals and funeral homes that have the rest are at or near capacity, Flanagan and county spokesman Fields Moseley said.
Abrazo Health Network, based in Phoenix, has space in the morgue, but has ordered refrigerated storage to have additional capacity if needed, a spokesperson said Thursday.
Report by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Bill Tarrant and Matthew Lewis edition
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