Experts aren't sure whether human remains are infectious, but the likelihood is high, forensic scientists Ahmad Samarji wrote in a post for The Conversation. Experts are urging that governments limit the viewing and handling of bodies after death.
However, it's challenging to limit contact with the dead when daily death tolls are high that city morgues and funeral homes are struggling to keep up.
China's National Health Commission issued regulations on February 1 stating that all victims who died of the coronavirus must be cremated at the nearest facility. "No farewell ceremonies or other funeral activities involving the corpse shall be held," the NHC announcement reads.
Wuhan, and most of China, was locked down in late January, making it extremely challenging for families to pick their loved ones' ashes until recently, NPR reported.
Authorities in Wuhan have required that families reserve a time slot to pick up those ashes and bury them, according to NPR, all while accompanied by an official.
Dnipro has dug 615 graves and readied 2,000 seal-able body bags in preparation for COVID-19 fatalities, the mayor's spokeswoman, Yulia Vitvitsk, told AFP on April 6.
"We are preparing for the worst," mayor Borys Filatov said on his Facebook page last week.
Italy passed an emergency national law that banned religious ceremonies, including funerals.
A convoy of at least 10 military trucks was filmed passing through the city on March 18.
The army was transporting 61 bodies to cremation sites in 12 Italian towns, including Modena and Parma, the national newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported.
On April 2, Spain set a grim record in the coronavirus pandemic, recording more deaths in a single day than any nation so far: 950.
Strict bans on gatherings have limited Spaniards' ability to mourn and properly bury their dead. CNN reported that, in the capital of Madrid, drive-through funerals are commonplace. Families must say farewell to their loved ones from a distance; there's no visitation or public burial.
This satellite image, taken by the private space technology company Maxar Technologies, shows the Behesht-e Masoumeh complex, which includes the city's biggest cemetery.
Iranian authorities dug two new trenches, both about 100 yards, last month. The images suggest that graves were being hurriedly dug, which underscores the scale of the outbreak in Iran — and the difficulties officials are having in quelling it.
There have been more than 68,000 coronavirus cases reported in Iran, and at least 4,200 deaths.
The country has more than 4,000 cases, and at least 220 deaths linked to the virus, and NBC News reported that delays with funerals had some families keeping dead bodies in their homes for days.
The Ecuadorian government, which began storing bodies in giant refrigerated containers last week, hopes to bury about 100 people a day at Guayaquil's new cemetery, which can fit 2,000 plots.
An average of 428 people have died each day within the city's five boroughs from COVID-19 from April 1-7, or about one person every 3 minutes 22 seconds. But that counts likely does not include probable cases like at-home cardiac arrests.
Funeral directors, who claim the bodies from morgues for families, say they are overwhelmed by the slow-moving disaster in NYC and can't keep up.
"I don't know how many more bodies I can take," Patrick Marmo, a funeral-home operator based in Brooklyn, previously told Business Insider. "No one in the New York City area possibly has enough equipment to care for human remains of this magnitude."
Mark Levine, the chair of the city's Council Health Committee, said on April 6 that officials were preparing to dig trenches in a city park to temporarily bury the bodies of those who have died from COVID-19 — an option described in the city's 2016 fatality surge plan.
He later walked back the notion.
"I have spoken to many folks in City gov't today, and received unequivocal assurance that there will be *no* burials in NYC Parks," Levine later tweeted. "All have stated clearly that if temporary interment should be needed it will be done on Hart Island."
The city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) stated Thursday that decedents not claimed from temporary storage by a funeral home within 14 days would be interred at the Bronx's Hart Island.
OCME initially planned to wait only six days, but funeral directors pushed back, arguing the pandemic and backup of bodies might prevent families from getting their loved ones' remains in time.
Those who are interred can either be removed by family members or left at rest for no cost, the OCME website added.
If hundreds (or even thousands) of bodies are buried there in the coming weeks, families might have to wait until long after the pandemic subsides to claim and move loved ones to a final resting place.
"It's going to take years to get bodies off of Hart Island at that rate," the funeral director told Business Insider.
De Blasio added: "There will be no mass burials on Hart Island. Everything will be individual and every body will be treated with dignity. [...] We do not anticipate temporary burials on Hart Island except for the unclaimed."
John Haltiwanger contributed reporting to this story.
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