China says “Immediate cremation for Wuhan deaths”

In this article from Business Insider that was published last Saturday, the Chinese National Health Commission along with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Public Affairs issued regulations stating that all coronavirus deaths in China must be immediately cremated with “no farewell ceremonies or other funeral activities involving the corpse”.

Up until Saturday “quick and simple” funerals were allowed.

According to the above article the procedure for the Wuhan coronvirus deaths is as follows.

  1. “The medical staff at the medical facility where the person was being treated are required to disinfect and seal the remains”
  2. “The medical staff will issue a death certificate and notify the family and the local funeral services facility will be contacted”
  3. “Funeral services personnel will then collect the body, deliver it to the relevant facility, and directly cremate the remains.  A cremation certificate will then be issued.”

Funeral Director Daily take:  It is interesting as a funeral director to see this protocol being put into place.  It reminds me of a time about 15 years ago when I was part of a government task force to put procedures into place for a potential lethal contagion epidemic to hit Minnesota.  Oddly enough, that task force was called into action due to the possibility of the H1N1 virus that was believed to have started in China coming to our shores.

I don’t remember everything about that task force, but what I do remember is dealing with the issue of what happens if and when the funeral directors and/or crematory operators and/or their families are infected by the contagion?

Another thing I remember is that our task force believed that there were areas of appropriate population that were woefully short of human remains coolers.  I remember that part of the plan was to work with companies who own refrigerated semi-trailers and being able to lease those trailers, as stationary coolers, for the length of the epidemic.

Finally, and this is somewhat important even today, we realized that most funeral homes do not have adequate supplies of body bags and other items such as disposable body suits (worn by the funeral directors) for an extended outbreak of any type.  It was also explained that trying to get items on short notice might be difficult.

It was at this time that I decided that our funeral home would order a couple of extra body bags, disposable body suits, and boxes of disposable gloves, every couple of months – just to be put into storage – so we would be prepared in the unlikely event of some epidemic in our area.  Doing it every so often over an extended period of time evened out the cost for us.  I continue to portend that this might be a good practice by your funeral home.

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