COVID-19 is considered to be a "Mass Fatality Incident," which means it’s an event that has caused first responders to be overwhelmed. 

Coroners and medical examiners are among the many first responders who have been hit hard by the pandemic, so it’s no surprise that a mandate from the New York State Health Department is causing some anxiety, and even anger, among professionals in the world of medical legal death investigation. 

According to guidance from the State Health Department, on September 1, 2020, emergency amendments were put into effect "mandating post-mortem testing of decedents suspected of having suffered the effects of either COVID-19 or influenza, to be performed within 48 hours of death if no such test was performed in the 14 days prior to death."

The reasoning behind the new mandate is that it will help the State Health Department to "collate accurate data measuring the true severity of these contagions…"

But Scott Schmidt, the Orleans County coroner and president of the New York State County Coroners and Medical Examiners Association, told Capital Tonight that coroners are typically part-timers who foot the bill for equipment themselves, and medical examiners’ offices are desperately underfunded.

"This latest directive about coroners having to provide a COVID test within 24 hours sounds like a great idea, but who is going to pay for those tests when in Orleans County, up until recent days, we haven’t had any ability to test anybody in the county period, let alone give the coroner a test kit to go to an unattended death," Schmidt explained.

Back in the spring, New York City’s morgue was so overwhelmed that 85 refrigerated trucks had to be sent to the city to serve as temporary mortuaries.  

According to Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, Suffolk County was forced to open a temporary morgue in a defunct meat-processing plant.

With COVID-19 surging throughout the state, many coroners and medical examiners are stretched to the limit, which isn’t too far. In rural counties, most coroners are only part-time. 

"I work out of my car, or my house. I don’t have a secretary," Schmidt told Capital Tonight. "When the pandemic struck in the spring I had to buy my own personal protective equipment."

Financial challenges are only part of the problem. Schmidt says that dealing with COVID-19-positive bodies can be dangerous. 

"If we don’t know if a person is COVID positive in an unattended death, we go in there blind and we don’t have equipment. We expose not only ourselves, but our families, our co-workers, our colleagues, our coroner transporters, which for 90% of coroners are our counterpart funeral directors," he said.  

Schmidt told Capital Tonight, "I love it, but I don’t know how much longer I want to do this job, putting myself and my family at risk."