More freezers needed for COVID-19 dead

MANILA, Philippines — The government has asked the private sector to provide more refrigerated vans as cadavers of COVID-19 fatalities start piling up at many health facilities.

Some crematoriums interviewed by the Inquirer last week said they were already swamped and the lack of mortuary freezers had resulted in some bodies rotting in hospital morgues.

National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF) deputy implementer Vince Dizon on Aug. 15 wrote to the Association of International Shipping Lines (AISL) to seek help in securing additional freezers to address the problem.“(O)ur attention has been called to the alarming number of cadavers, which have been piling up in our various health facilities,” read a copy of the letter addressed to AISL general manager Maximino Cruz.

“It is in this light of national emergency that we are requesting the assistance of the AISL in providing our health facilities with all its available refrigeration vans in order to promptly manage the cadavers during this surge,” it added.

Asked what he meant exactly in the letter about bodies piling up, Dizon clarified in an online message that the situation “isn’t that bad yet, but we have to be ready,” especially as the country faces another surge in infections driven by the more transmissible Delta variant.