McBell
Unbound
Los Angeles County has temporarily suspended air quality rules in order to allow covid-19 victims to be cremated, according to an executive order passed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District over the weekend. The rules will be suspended for 10 days as the region works through a “backlog” of people who have died from the coronavirus pandemic, which is still uncontrolled in many parts of the country.
Los Angeles County has 28 crematoriums, though those facilities are prohibited by law from running at full capacity in order to cut down on air pollution. But with over 2,700 bodies currently sitting in cold storage due to an influx of dead patients from the covid-19 crisis, local authorities have decided that dirtier air is the price Angelenos will have to pay if the backlog is ever going to be cleared.
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Los Angeles has been hit particularly hard by the covid-19 pandemic, with the county recently surpassing 1 million total cases. The county has also reported 13,936 deaths as of Monday night. The U.S. has identified over 24 million cases and at least 398,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
Cremating bodies creates air pollution and unleashes trace amounts of hazardous chemicals, such as mercury. The most common source of mercury in the cremation process is dental fillings in deceased Baby Boomers, a generation that was given mercury-laced dental work before alternatives were developed.
L.A. Suspends Air Quality Rules to Cremate Backlog of Covid-19 VictimsLos Angeles County has 28 crematoriums, though those facilities are prohibited by law from running at full capacity in order to cut down on air pollution. But with over 2,700 bodies currently sitting in cold storage due to an influx of dead patients from the covid-19 crisis, local authorities have decided that dirtier air is the price Angelenos will have to pay if the backlog is ever going to be cleared.
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Los Angeles has been hit particularly hard by the covid-19 pandemic, with the county recently surpassing 1 million total cases. The county has also reported 13,936 deaths as of Monday night. The U.S. has identified over 24 million cases and at least 398,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
Cremating bodies creates air pollution and unleashes trace amounts of hazardous chemicals, such as mercury. The most common source of mercury in the cremation process is dental fillings in deceased Baby Boomers, a generation that was given mercury-laced dental work before alternatives were developed.
