Idaho morgues are currently overwhelmed as COVID-19 death toll rises.
The Washington Post reported, Dave Salove has watched his morgue fill with bodies. Covid-19 victims have poured into the funeral home he runs in Boise, Idaho, in recent weeks, as the state contends with an unprecedented spike in deaths driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus. His 16-slot refrigeration room is over capacity. Other funeral homes have neared a tipping point, too.
Intent on avoiding the makeshift morgues that cropped up in the Northeast during the pandemic’s first wave, Salove this week brought in a refrigerated trailer to hold the growing number of dead. By Friday, there were seven corpses inside, up from two the day before. Six more were on their way from another facility, telling the story through the eyes of funeral home workers.
Allegedly, the excess of human remains has become so burdensome, few morticians have started embalming bodies that otherwise would not need the process, so that they don’t have to be refrigerated.
Of Idaho’s 1.7 million people, 867,000 have been vaccinated. More than 90,000 have received one dose, and 776,000 have received both, yet somehow the death toll is able to overwhelm the state.
Idaho itself though only has 2,753 total deaths related to the virus. They also record a total of 816 new cases as of September 25th, and 17 deaths over a 7 day average.
These seem like small numbers in relation to the virus and it’s impact at large. However, the situation in Idaho has gotten so bad that in some places, people had to wait weeks just to cremate their loved ones.