Funeral homes in the New York City area are being called on to bury more people. At the same time, because of the coronavirus, they have to take precautions that limit the number of funerals they can conduct each day. Lucchese says, under New York rules, the funerals are limited to no more than 10 people, and he can conduct just three a day.

“In between every family, we’ll clean and disinfect every funeral home so there’s very little chance of cross-contamination from families,” he says.

With the pandemic, the process of transferring bodies from hospitals has changed.

“We go to just about every hospital and nursing home in the Bronx,” Lucchese says. “Most of the hospitals have gotten these refrigerated trailers in.”

Instead of going in the hospital, he says sometimes funeral home staff are asked to wait outside while the hospital does the paperwork.