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Coronavirus pandemic
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

As Singapore sees more Covid-19 deaths than last year, what happens to the bodies of patients without families?

  • A rise in cases has put pressure on the city state’s funeral service industry to adjust to handling more Covid-19 deaths
  • Funeral workers and religious leaders stand in for family at wakes and cremations when there are no mourners

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Funeral workers wear personal protective equipment before collecting a Covid-19 patient’s body. Photo: Marielle Descalsota
Marielle Descalsota
When it comes to death, veteran embalmer Dennis Pedrozo has seen it all in his 24 years of preserving bodies. But nothing prepared him for the Covid-19 pandemic, which has changed long-standing funeral practices.
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While Singapore’s Covid-19 death toll remains one of the lowest in the world, there was a sudden spike in infections and deaths in October, following clusters linked to karaoke lounges and fishery ports.

Singapore recorded 30 Covid-19 deaths in the 14 months following the country’s first confirmed cases on January 23 last year. However, the Delta variant outbreak caused a surge in cases, with 391 deaths between April 1 and November 1.

As of November 23, the city state had logged over 250,000 infections and 667 Covid-19 related deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

As funeral parlours cope with the rising death toll, Pedrozo has had to trade his embalming tools for full-suit personal protective equipment (PPE) to transport deceased Covid-19 patients from hospitals to crematoriums.

While a non-Covid-19 patient may be placed in an open casket, Covid-19 patients’ coffins are airtight, with the glass completely sealed. Photo: Marielle Descalsota
While a non-Covid-19 patient may be placed in an open casket, Covid-19 patients’ coffins are airtight, with the glass completely sealed. Photo: Marielle Descalsota

Pedrozo works at Singapore Casket, one of the largest parlours in the country. The parlour handled around 140 to 150 deaths a month prior to the outbreak in early 2020. In October, it handled 190, manager Jeffrey Lee said.

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