| schema:articleBody
| - Brooklyn's Green-Wood cemetery has seen cremations more than double and five times more burials than usual, as the coronavirus claims New Yorkers' lives by the thousands. The city's largest cemetery -- beloved for its meandering hills, glacial ponds and vibrant flora -- began preparing for an influx years ago, during the 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic that ultimately left the United States largely unscathed. But last month, the COVID-19 wave struck the picturesque Green-Wood, a nearly 500-acre space founded in 1838 where famous inhabitants including the composer Leonard Bernstein and the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat lie among serpentine paths and cobblestone lanes. Normally, the cemetery carries out 60 cremations a week -- but lately, between 130 and 140 have become the norm. And it's not just at Green-Wood, said Eric Barna, the site's vice president of operations. "Every cemetery in the city is under the same burden, trying to keep up and trying to keep their staff safe," said Barna, a board member of the Metropolitan Cemetery Association that includes sites throughout the New York region. "I even heard that there were some funeral directors actually looking out of state because we're booking so far in advance for the crematories," he told AFP. "It's getting to that point where the system can't handle this amount in such a short amount of time." Cremation -- which runs approximately $370 -- is less costly compared to burials. In this cemetery nearing capacity, a three-casket plot goes for some $19,000. In the past two weeks, interments have spiked, Barna said, with as many as 16 daily versus the average two to three. The official coronavirus toll in New York City, the epicenter of the US pandemic, is already more than some entire countries -- and likely higher than what's been reported, according to Barna, "because of the lack of testing." The city of New York on Tuesday evening added 3,700 "probable" deaths -- those likely but not certainly caused by coronavirus -- bringing the toll to more than 10,000. Governor Andrew Cuomo and city mayor Bill de Blasio have evoked a plateau of the virus' impact in recent days -- of which Barna says he hasn't yet seen evidence, even if there's been a semblance of stabilization. Last week, de Blasio floated the notion of temporary burials to handle the record number of deaths, an idea Barna voiced skepticism over. "The city is really not prepared to handle running a temp cemetery like that," he said, pointing to religious considerations and record-keeping as challenges. Green-Wood employees are equipped with protective gear and handle all burials and cremations as potential COVID-19 cases, Barna said, limiting interactions between families and workers. The cemetery has not recorded a confirmed case of the virus, and Barna said most funeral processions include only the immediate families. Cremation attendance is limited to 10 people -- an almost unnecessary precaution, as the number of memorial ceremonies has dropped to just one or two daily, compared to 20 on any given Saturday. Barna expects memorial services to pick up once things "start to go back to normal." But until then: "Every day is kind of a weird day," he said. tu/cat/mdo/to
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)