LONDON – For more than a century, John Harris’ family funeral home has buried London’s working-class East End people. He says he never saw death on the scale forged by Covid-19.
He receives 20 calls a day and hired more employees to deal with the situation. “My 92-year-old father was doing burials during the Blitz in the 1940s,” when German bombers razed much of the area, Harris said. “He did not experience this level of mortality.”
The outbreak here offers a severe warning to the United States and others about what is in store if more contagious variants of the new coronavirus – like the one sweeping this densely populated and ethnically mixed community – take over.
In the East End neighborhood of Barking and Dagenham earlier this month, it is estimated that one in 16 residents is infected with Covid-19. The local hospital near Romford rationed the oxygen as the beds became smaller. He recently passed a dark milestone: more than 1,100 patients killed by the virus.
The local government has four cars roaming the streets with megaphones shouting the words “Coronavirus kills”. Religious leaders agreed to stop performing face-to-face services in an effort to stem the spread of the pathogen.