Morgue Space in NYC Expanded With 45 Cooler Trucks

New York City has bought 45 refrigerated truck trailers – each capable of holding as many as 44 bodies -- in case city morgues and hospitals become overwhelmed with the number of dead from the coronavirus. With the addition of refrigerated tents, the city will have the capacity to hold as many as 3,600 bodies, a city official said.

The city is the expanding epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak in the U.S., with almost 200 deaths and about 18,000 cases. Officials stress that the measures are so far only precautionary, but the trailers and tents reflect both the feared scale of the epidemic in New York City and the precise lengths to which officials have been planning for the worst -- down to the temperature of the trucks.