MIAMI — Deaths caused by the coronavirus haven’t overwhelmed South Florida’s medical community yet — but officials are getting refrigerated trucks to be used as mobile morgues, just in case.
With a wary eye on the COVID-19 catastrophe unfolding in New York City, Jackson Health System has already secured refrigerated trucks “out of an abundance of caution.” The federal government is also planning to station some outside Miami’s Veterans Administration Hospital.
The Broward Medical Examiner’s Office has already retrofitted a 53-foot tractor trailer with shelves and a ramp and is storing the bodies of people not killed by the highly contagious virus. And the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office plans to deploy one this week too — but so forensic pathologists can house suspected COVID-19 cases away from the bodies that are normally brought in for autopsies for deaths such as car accidents, shootings and stabbings.
“It’s more for employee safety,” said Darren Caprara, the director of operations for the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office.
The truck, which can house between 20 and 30 bodies, will be in place later this week, Caprara said.
Even though the coronavirus’ spread across the country and world has been anticipated, the optics of mobile morgues is nevertheless jarring for the public.
By deploying mobile cooling trucks, officials hope to avoid what happened in Italy, where the sheer number of deaths has been so large that caskets have piled up in graveyards and in churches.
In New York City, the nation’s most affected metropolitan region, officials have deployed 45 refrigerated units to help accommodate the rising number of bodies. More than 2,400 people have died in New York City, overwhelming hospitals and funeral homes. The Department of Defense is also securing trailer trucks for the city.
“It’s taking longer for the bodies to be released and for the bodies to be transferred,” a funeral home operator told the New York Times. “When you overwhelm the health system, you also overwhelm the death system.”
As of Monday evening, Florida had recorded 254 COVID-19 deaths, among over 13,600 diagnosed cases, although experts believe both numbers are likely higher because of a lack of testing. In Miami-Dade, the epicenter of the state’s coronavirus outbreak, 41 deaths have been recorded.
In Broward County, there have been 47 COVID-19 deaths as of Monday evening, according the Florida Department of Health.
Though the number of COVID-19 deaths is escalating in Florida, most of the viral deaths happen in hospitals and the bodies go straight to funeral homes, not the Medical Examiner’s office.
Two weeks ago, the Broward Medical Examiner’s brought in a 53-foot refrigerated truck, built a ramp and installed shelving. For now, according to Medical Examiner Craig Mallak, the mobile facility is being used to hold non-COVID-19 cases so the truck can be “sanitized and reused.”
The Veterans Administration is purchasing seven mobile cooler trucks to be stationed at seven of its Florida health centers, just in case.
For now, most COVID-19 deaths are happening in hospitals, which have their own morgues to store bodies until they are released to funeral homes for burial or cremation. So far, it appears South Florida hospitals are handling the rise in dead bodies without any problems.
“We are tracking hospital morgue capacity in all of Broward’s hospitals and none are having issues, right now,” said Jaime Caldwell, a spokesman for the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. Most have made arrangements to expand their facility morgue capacity by bringing in refrigerated trucks. Again, this is fairly standard.
“Bodies are being recovered by body removal or funeral homes reasonably timely.”
At Miami’s Jackson Health, a spokeswoman said, the system took “the precautionary measure to secure refrigerated mobile trucks in the event that our hospitals’ morgues reach capacity.”
“But we have not reached that level yet. As we navigate through this crisis, we are learning from other areas that have faced severe medical challenges like New York City and, out of an abundance of caution, we are trying to plan ahead,” spokeswoman Jennifer Piedra said.
The trucks are already stationed at Jackson’s main three hospitals, Piedra said.
As for the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office, it is tasked with issuing death certificates for those who succumb to diseases threatening the public’s health. But the office of Medical Examiner Emma Lew won’t need to perform autopsies on most of those cases, as doctors in the hospitals are issuing causes of deaths.
If bodies outside hospitals are suspected of having the virus, nasal swabs are being taken and sent to federal health authorities. So far, at most, the bodies of eight people actually brought to the Medical Examiner’s Office have been tested for COVID-19, and most of those came back negative, Caprara said.
The morgue at the Medical Examiner’s Office, however, can still be used to house bodies of those who die in hospitals.
“We have the inherent capability to hold 100 to 150 bodies built into our morgue already, so there is room to accept overflow here,” Caprara said.
This wouldn’t be the first time the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office has had to rent trucks.
In 1980, when Miami became the murder capital of the country, the officer rented a Burger King trailer truck to handle the corpses of victims killed in drug-related shootouts and other homicides.
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