COVID-19 limiting funeral attendance
The new coronavirus has changed life as we know it. And death, too.
Local funeral home directors said they’re capping the number of people who can attend a funeral service at 10 in order to help curb the spread of the virus, which causes the infectious disease COVID-19. For those who have someone in their life die during this time, they suggested having a burial now and holding a memorial service with more people when the pandemic dies down.
“So they might do a burial now and have a memorial service later on when this is all over in a couple months,” said Bryan Carnahan, owner of Goble’s Fortuna Mortuary.
Because there’s a limit of 10 people at each funeral, Carnahan said people who want to have a large service won’t be able to.
Paul’s Chapel has made a few other changes in addition to restricting the number of people. Paul’s Chapel in Arcata is having “more funerals that are graveside,” said Sandy Kutzkey, manager of the funeral home.
“We don’t do funerals in the building right now,” Kutzkey said. “So we can’t do a Catholic Mass or services here in our chapel.”
The mortuaries are trying to limit the number of people who need to come into the building and have been working with people over the phone and email as much as possible, too.
“We’re trying to avoid substantial groups in the building,” said Chuck Ayres, owner of Ayres Family Cremation, so the funeral home is working with people remotely.
In some cases they fill out the paperwork for clients and drop it off at their houses so all clients have to do is mail them or drop them off, he said.
At this point, Ayres said he’s “not preparing for a big spike in number of deaths we see occur” because of COVID-19 just yet, but the funeral home has enough supplies to handle larger volumes if necessary.
How funerals are conducted may change even more if the COVID-19 outbreak worsens in Humboldt County, but for now Rabbi Naomi Steinberg said social distancing isn’t impacting Jewish funeral services and one member of the Jewish faith who died in Southern Humboldt recently chose to be cremated instead of buried.
“When someone is cremated, it’s easier to postpone gathering,” Steinberg said. “If someone is going to be buried, that’s going to pose a problem.”
In Judaism, there are “rituals for preparing the body to be put in the coffin, and those rituals would be difficult to do under these circumstances,” Steinberg said.
However, 10 is the traditional quorum for certain rites, so Steinberg said they would at least be able to do the minimal possible rites, but “usually we try to have as many people as possible involved in the rituals of death.”
“The more people, the more comfort,” Steinberg said.
How funerals are conducted may change even more if the COVID-19 outbreak worsens in Humboldt County, but for now Rabbi Naomi Steinberg said social distancing isn’t impacting Jewish funeral services and one member of the Jewish faith who died in Southern Humboldt recently chose to be cremated instead of buried.