New York funeral home overwhelmed by wave of Covid-19 deaths

The directors of a New York funeral home say they have worked non-stop for a fortnight as the Covid-19 pandemic surges through the city, sending the local death toll spiralling upwards.

In an interview with Sky News published on Monday, Joseph Nuefeld said coronavirus had created an explosion of demand for the Gerard J Nuefeld funeral home's services.

"People are unfortunately passing away in big numbers," Mr Nuefeld told Sky. "I'm trying to accommodate them as best I can… I think we had about 12 services scheduled.

"And shortly after I left the office, within two hours, I had three more services. And then this morning, as soon as we came in, we put on three or four more services."

More than 1,000 people in have now died in New York state after contracting Covid-19, with New York City alone reporting 776 deaths by Sunday evening, city officials said.

Most of the deaths have happened in the span of just a few days.

Among the many people to have already lost a loved one to the outbreak is Robert Lugo, a distraught patron of the funeral home on behalf of his 80-year-old grandmother.

"My grandmother died alone," Mr Lugo told Sky.

"We didn't even see her and couldn't touch or talk to her," he added.

"We couldn't give her that boost of morale to say, hey, you know, you got to come out of this. We need you to come out of this. There was nothing."

Amid New York's crisis, the US government's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has warned the US in its entirety could yet face "millions of cases" of Covid-19 in the weeks and months to come as new virus epicentres emerge in other key cities such as Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago.

Speaking to CNN’s State Of The Union show on Sunday, Mr Fauci warned an outbreak on that scale that could result in between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths nationwide.

The US leads the world in recorded coronavirus cases - with more than 143,000 confirmed Covid-19 infections - but Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France have all suffered higher death tolls.

US President Donald Trump has been widely criticised for his management of the outbreak, with critics accusing him of downplaying the severity of Covid-19 and not acting quickly enough to curtail it.

Mr Trump had floated the idea of imposing a quarantine on New York, but U-turned on such a plan over the weekend after outcry from state officials.

The US president had previously said he was considering isolating the east coast city along with nearby New Jersey and Connecticut in a bid to stem the coronavirus crisis.

He has now abandoned the idea and asked federal health officials to issue a "strong travel advisory" to avoid all but essential travel in the region for two weeks instead.

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