Page 68 - COVID-19 and the Church_eBOOK_Color_07.16.2020_Neat

Local And State Officials Had To Think Outside The Box—
The coronavirus pandemic led to many unanticipated
problems. One such problem was, how to handle and
treat the unprecedented number of people showing up at
hospital emergency centers with coronavirus symptoms.
Another mind draining problem was what to do with
massive numbers of human bodies that were collecting
across the U.S. and around the world.
In the United States, state and local officials had to
think outside of the box to come up with an answer to
that question. These problems had to be solved across the
nation without over stressing or offending loved ones.

Illinois’s Response To Elevated New Patients Count—
In Illinois, Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Lori
Lightfoot took matters to a whole new level. They
brought in the National Guard and Army Corps of
Engineers to convert the world-famous McCormick Place
Exposition Center into an emergency treatment center
for an expected three-thousand (3,000) new coronavirus
patients. Fortunately, new patient numbers in Chicago
began to decline before all three-thousand mock hospital
rooms were completed.

Dealing With Record Numbers Of Human Remains—
Many funeral homes were immediately overloaded
to the point of having to process bodies without
embalming them. And, Cook County Board President
Toni Preckwinkle rose to the challenge by converting
a 66,000 square-foot refrigerated warehouse into a
morgue. Preckwinkle’s make-shift could temporarily
store as many as two-thousand (2,000) human remains
for several months.