As people are concerned with the accuracy of the death count from the Coronavirus that the Chinese government posts, Epoch Times reporters called funeral homes in Wuhan to inquire about the count of incineration each day. The following are the highlights of the report:
1. The interviewee said that both corpse transportation and incineration at his funeral home were four to five times the usual workload.
2. His funeral home has 9 cars to transport corpses. On February 3 alone, his funeral home took in 127 corpses and incinerated 116.
3. Among the 127 corpses, 8 were confirmed coronavirus deaths and 48 were suspected cases. However, since 116 corpses were incinerated immediately, they were likely to be coronavirus deaths, also. in the cases where the death is normal, the family members of the deceased may need more time to coordinate the incineration time.
4. 38 percent of the corpses were from hospitals and 61 percent were directly from people’s homes. This would indicate a large number of patients and deaths occurred outside of the hospital system.
5. Hankou funeral home incinerated more than the funeral home mentioned above. Since Hankou funeral home had 16 cars, it could incinerate 225 corpses, if operating at the same capacity.
6. Another funeral home said that they incinerated 30 corpses in one day. Assuming four other funeral houses incinerated at the same rate, that would be a total of 150 per day.
[Editor’s Note: The funeral’s death count combines natural deaths and coronavirus deaths. There can be two methods to estimate the coronavirus death count.Method 1: Assuming 116 out of 127 deaths were coronavirus deaths, that’s about 90 percent of the total deaths. The total death count from above was 127 + 225 + 150 = 502; 90 percent of that would have been coronavirus deaths, which was 451.
Method 2: The total death count was 502. The normal incineration rate was 122 per day before the epidemic outbreak (see Chinascope posting “Death Count: Wuhan Incinerated 122 Corpses before Coronavirus Outbreak”). That leaves 380 coronavirus deaths per day in Wuhan.]
As of February 10, China reported a total of 909 coronavirus deaths, among which 871 were from Hubei Province (including Wuhan City).
Related posting on Chinascope:
Excerpts in Chinese:
湖北某殡仪馆的尤虎向调查员透露说：“我本人都快崩溃了，我们现在压力非常大。”“现在的运输量和火化量是平时的四到五陪。”“殡仪馆忙到快崩溃。”
他说，殡仪馆的工作人员从年前到现在都没有休息，“这里每天能睡上两三个小时已经是很幸福”。
“我昨天（2月3日）总共接运遗体127个，烧掉了116个；其中死亡证明上确诊（新冠肺炎）的是8个，写的疑似的是48个。”
尤虎说，“我跟汉口殡仪馆沟通过，它现在的业务量比我还大，它的压力比我大。”
尤虎说，“以前殡仪馆早上6点钟开始火化，到中午就不干了；现在的情况是，遗体接应过来立即火化不停。”尤虎表示，他所在的殡仪馆有18台火化炉，但只有11台火化炉能够运作，而一台炉子焚烧一具遗体需要五十分钟。
由此可知，尤虎的殡仪馆目前每天最多可以焚烧316具遗体（注：11X24hrX（60mins/50mins）=316）。
现实中，在新冠肺炎第一波死亡高峰前夕，以2月3日为例，该殡仪馆接运127具遗体，当天焚烧116具。根据中共当局现行的新冠病患遗体须立即火化的政策来判断，殡仪馆须优先焚烧新冠病患遗体；其它死者的遗体，由于殡葬文化、仪式等缘由，不一定会当天焚烧。据此可以推定，这116名死者基本上都是死于新冠肺炎、至少是被怀疑死于该病，换言之，这间殡仪馆接运遗体逾九成（116/127）都是新冠病患死者。
依据尤虎披露的9台殡葬车、一天接运127具遗体的运能来推算，汉口殡仪馆目前每天16台车能接运的遗体数量约为225具，依据武汉市现行政策，汉口殡仪馆接运的遗体只能是新冠肺炎病患死者。
由此可知，目前汉口殡仪馆每天最多可以焚烧576具遗体，但受运能制约，目前每天约焚烧225具新冠病患的遗体。
以新洲区殡仪馆为例，大纪元调查员也采访了新洲区殡仪馆高管，对方称“现在压力很大，员工连续加班，都很疲劳，9个火化炉每天24小时连轴转”，“每天约处理30具遗体”。
这里暂且不提一天30具遗体是否会令新洲区殡仪馆9个火化炉运作24小时。就算以此推算，青山、新洲等5家殡仪馆如今每天只处理30具遗体，其中约9成为新冠病患的话，这5家武汉市属殡仪馆每天也至少焚烧了135具新冠病患遗体。
加上尤虎所在殡仪馆的116具和汉口殡仪馆的225具病患遗体，2月3日前后，仅这几家殡仪馆的火化炉，每天都焚烧了至少476具新冠病患遗体。
尤虎说，“前几天我做了一个统计数据，百分之三十八是医院接来的，百分之六十一是在家里死亡的。”“所以说这个就医的情况很不好”，“你想想，百分之六十多在家里死的。”
Source: Epoch Times, February 5, 2020
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/2/5/n11845444.htm