LONDON (CU)_Temporary morgues have been set up in some areas in the United Kingdom, after mortuaries at the local hospitals began running out of space owing to the surge in deaths caused by COVID-19.
The new variant of Coronavirus discovered in the UK has fuelled record levels of death and new infections in the last few weeks, especially in London and southeast England.
In Surrey, a county in South East England, for instance, the mortuaries at the local hospitals have reached their capacity of 600, and therefore authorities are required to start using a temporary morgue.
“To avoid patients who have sadly died being left on wards, or as we have seen overseas left in corridors … when the mortuaries are reaching capacity, they contact the temporary mortuary to go and collect bodies,” a spokesman for the Surrey Resilience Forum said.
According to the spokesman, about 170 bodies are currently being kept at a former Ministry of Defence site in Leatherhead, which has now been converted into one such temporary morgue.
This facility was in fact first set up in April last year, during the first outbreak of the pandemic in Britain, and is reported have space for 845 bodies. However, over the last three weeks, the facility dealt with 330 bodies, in stark contrast to the outbreak last year, when it dealt with almost twice that number, at 700, over a period of three months (April to June).
Britain has reported more than 3.15 million COVID-19 infections and more than 83,000 fatalities since the beginning of the pandemic, while in the first week of this year, the country registered an average of 739 virus-induced deaths per day, which is mainly attributable to the new variant of Coronavirus.
Accordingly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week, announced a new national lockdown which requires all people in England to stay at home and only go out for certain reasons. Moreover, it has been made illegal to leave home without a “reasonable excuse”, meaning the police can fine anyone up to a maximum of £6,400 (US$8,754) if they leave home without such an excuse.
