ORLANDO, Fla. — Fourteen portable refrigerated morgues are headed to Central Florida to help beleaguered hospitals store dead bodies, officials said Friday.
“The number of deaths right now is unprecedented,” said Lynne Drawdy, executive director of the Central Florida Disaster Medical Coalition, who ordered the units for health systems in the area. “What we’re hearing from the hospitals is that the death count right now is higher than it ever has been.”
Although she could not say how many of the deaths are due to COVID-19, she said COVID-19 is unquestionably the “precipitating event.”
Florida is now reporting an average of 227 COVID-19 deaths a day — a state record and by far the highest count in the nation.
Across the U.S., 864 people died per day over the past week with COVID-19, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s an 11% increase from the week prior.
The state Health Department in Orange County received reports of 19 COVID-19 deaths between Monday and Thursday, and 10 more Friday, but it’s unclear when the deaths occurred as reports are often delayed. “But still we’ve never had a day where we had 10 reported overnight,” said Raul Pino, health officer in Orange County.
He said the death counts, like the county’s high infection rate, is fueled by the über-contagious delta variant and unvaccinated people.
“There is no question that the delta variant had changed everything,” he said. “But if we were at higher rates of vaccination, let’s say 80 to 85% of our eligible population, the numbers would be smaller.”
Pino said he was concerned that hospitals are calling the death figure unprecedented.
“That means that likely in the coming weeks we are going to see bad, bad numbers,” he said.
Finding morgue capacity is a top priority of health systems, said Drawdy.
She said the portable morgues hold a dozen bodies each.
“Unlike last year, we don’t have a state declaration (of emergency) that releases other resources and assets such as FEMORS,” she said, referring to the Florida Emergency Mortuary Operations Response System, based at the University of Florida’s William R. Maples Center for Forensic Medicine.
FEMORS was deployed to assist in recovery operations at the Champlain Towers South condominium tower collapse in Surfside, Florida.
The coalition’s district, which includes Brevard, Indian River, Lake, Martin, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties, covers 50 hospitals.
“We can’t provide one to every single hospital,” Drawdy said.
The coalition instead has worked with hospital systems in hopes of covering them all, she said.
AdventHealth for instance will get three units. Orlando Health also will get three.
“The Central Florida Disaster Medical Coalition offered Orlando Health three mobile refrigeration units, which we accepted out an abundance of caution. We did not request them and have no plans or need to utilize them at this time. Orlando Health has adequate morgue capacity,” said Kena Lewis, a spokesperson.
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