THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) – COVID-19 victims endure severe isolation even after death in Thessaloniki, the city in Greece worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Efcharis Gunseer, 84, could not see her daughter during a losing battle with the virus, not in the nursing home where she first became ill, or in the hospital where she spent a few weeks. The staff of the overwhelming guard unit were also too busy setting up calls, the daughter said.
When Gunseer died in late August, her body was wrapped in two plastic bags and wrapped in a coffin. According to city-based rules, she was not buried next to her deceased husband, but in a section of a cemetery reserved for people infected with the virus. Her grave is not restricted to visitors.
“I think dying alone this way is the worst thing that can happen,” daughter Mikaela Triandafyllidou, 45, told The Associated Press. ‘I only saw my mother for a moment, from afar at the morgue for identification. People die with no one there for them, like dogs. ‘
According to Thessaloniki officials, more than 300 people have so far been buried in the secluded plots.
Greece experienced a worrying setback at the end of October when the country’s eight-month-long low-rise infections were abruptly ended and hospital wards were driven to their turn. Thessaloniki, the second largest city of Greece, and the surrounding areas in the north of the country had the greatest pressure. For weeks, the city reported a higher number of new cases than Athens, although the population was about a quarter as large.
The emergencies in the city’s hospitals are similar to the two cemeteries in Thessaloniki, where pandemic victims are buried and rows of graves are freshly dug up to keep funerals short. Pale white crosses and small plywood boards mark the graves.
In Greece, where most cemeteries are overcrowded, remains are usually removed after three years of burial and brought to an ossuary, but the victims of the coronavirus remain buried for ten years.
Giorgos Avarlis, the deputy mayor of Thessaloniki, said authorities were concerned that the bodies and coffin belts could slow down how quickly the bodies of pandemic victims decomposed.
“It is strictly forbidden to bury them anywhere else,” Avarlis said. He noted that people who died of sexually transmitted diseases had previously been buried in reserved parts of cemeteries, a practice that had been abandoned decades ago.
Scientific opinion on the posthumous danger posed by COVID-19 is divided. Coroners wear full protective equipment when performing autopsies on infected people, citing studies indicating that the virus remains posthumously in the respiratory system, respiratory secretions, feces and blood.
Yet Symeon Metallidis, an assistant professor of internal medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Thessaloniki, believes that the precautionary measures of the cemetery are mostly unnecessary.
“I find it absurd to do that. It makes no sense, “said Metallidis. “There is no evidence of transmission of the virus after death, nor is there any reason to be buried for ten years.”
At the Evosmos Cemetery of Thessaloniki, an Orthodox Christian priest stands under a small black tent tent waiting to hold funeral services, while grave diggers and pallet bearers in white overalls carry the funerals.
Chrysanthi Botsari, 69, recently lost her 75-year-old husband to the virus. According to her, she was never officially told where her funeral would take place at the end of November, and the information had to be pursued herself.
“We did not know where they were going to take him. “They just told us that it should not be in the cemeteries where other people are buried because of the coronavirus,” Botsari said.
“To me it is unacceptable, inhuman,” the widow said. “All these people died alone and helpless.”
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