A short account from a Covid 19 area

When my physical therapist arrived yesterday afternoon, he was dressed in his best clothes and not his usual outfit from the rehabilitation facility that he works in daily.  Something was up.  His mother had died early that morning at 2:30am(the logistics of that time are familiar to me from two years ago), and they had contacted their long time local funeral parlor in Brooklyn.  He was told that they could not take her, already overwhelmed with "customers".  He then called a funeral parlor near his house in central Nassau County, Long Island, and was told the they would only take her if the medical examiner confirmed that she had not died of Covid 19, aka caronavirus.  His mother was 89 and had a debilitating stroke last year, but after the required test proved negative she was accepted.  She had basically died of old age.  Nothing is simple in virus time.  Everything has changed.