Post-mortuary Care Amidst COVID-19

General Post-mortem Care Pre-COVID-19

Before the pandemic, bodies were prepared by trained nurses and select health care professionals for transportation to a funeral home or morgue. There, bodies would be stored in a refrigerated unit, embalmed, cremated, and/or prepared to be transported yet again to another site for viewing (4,6).

In order to handle a deceased body, essential personnel will:

• Wear gloves and other Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to reduce contamination from fluids.

• Wear proper respiratory equipment due to the chemicals of the body and the chemicals used to treat the body

• Will treat the body with dignity to preserve the body for future events (funerals, cremations, etc.).

COVID-19 Changes to Post-mortem Care

Currently, there is no evidence of transmission of COVID-19 to funeral industry workers who handle the bodies of those suspected of having, have been confirmed to have, or have died from COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), those who have passed and were exposed to COVID-19 can be cremated or buried (however the family desires) as long as proper PPE is used by anyone who comes into contact with the bodies. In other words, COVID-19 has not impacted how morticians or other designated funeral employees will handle deceased bodies as they are already required to wear select PPE. However, the pandemic has made it so that family members and other designated people who will view the bodies will need to wear a mask and have proper hand hygiene before and after being exposed to the body of a loved one (4,6,8).

Possible Solutions

• Essential oils in place of embalming chemicals

• Green Burials in place of traditional casket burial

• Aqua Cremation in place of traditional fire cremation

• Urban Death Project

According to Buckminister Fuller Institute, "Every year in U.S. cemeteries we bury 30 million board-feet of hardwood, 90,000 tons of steel, 1.6 millions of tons of concrete, and millions of gallons of formaldehyde-laden embalming fluid." In effort to reduce these numbers and harm to the environment, the four solutions listed above will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will improve air and water quality, and will overall improve the environment.

• Essential oils, oils extracted from herbs and other plants, when used in place of embalming chemicals, will decrease the amount of harmful chemicals released into the environment.

• Green burials (uses no embalming and the bodies are buried as is) will reduce the number of wood and cement inserted into the environment.

• Aqua cremations will limit the amount of green house gases released into the atmosphere as bodies are broken down by using water, heat, sodium, and potassium (1, 3, 5,).

• Lastly, the Urban Death Project consists of composting several bodies in a single space that eventually results in the bodies turning into soil. In return, less urns, cement, and wood are used, and the soil can then be reused as fertilizer (7).