Coronavirus: "Should the victims of Covid-19 really be cremated?"

Every day, Le Parisien is mobilized to answer your questions. Today, we are looking at the question of Thaïs who asks us: what do we do with the people who died from Covid-19? And should we incinerate them?

The number of Covid-19 deaths is increasing in France and has reached 860, including 186 more between March 22 and 23. In this context, the public authorities have adapted the provisions of funeral law.

Should all the dead from this disease be cremated? No. If the Chinese National Health Commission made this decision in a notice published on February 1, believing that those who died of the virus could not be buried and that their bodies should be cremated immediately, this is absolutely not the case in the hexagon.

In France the government recommendations are simple: "the mode of burial, burial or cremation, chosen according to the will of the deceased" or the "person having standing to provide for his funeral" must be respected. "The setting in beer in simple coffin authorizes the cremation", specify however the services of the State.

However, in the event of burial, the protocol to be observed is extremely precise and binding. The authorities' message, supervised by the High Council for Public Health, is clear: anyone who has died of the Covid-19 must be "immediately put in beer", with direct burial, without ceremony or going to a funeral home. "At the hospital, the nurses put the body in a sheet, then a closed cover," said a funeral director to the Parisian.

Funeral officers must be protected

"The setting in beer and the final closing of the coffin having to take place without delay, it is not possible for the family of the deceased deceased with coronavirus to see the body before it is put in beer in the mortuary room (Editor's note: an instruction which also applies to incineration) .

"It can therefore not be performed either mortuary toilet, including ritual, on the body of the deceased," adds the new regulations. In this context, thanatopraxia - conservation care - is also not allowed on the bodies of people who have died from the coronavirus.

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The body lifting is performed only by the funeral service company. Its agents must be covered from head to toe, "protect shoes, gloves, full suit ...". In the funeral chamber, the coffins are also apart. "The bodies are not in the same cold room, they are in a special room," say employees of the funeral directors.

To ask your question or testify, you can write to us using the form available by clicking here or send us an email at coronavirus@leparisien.fr. Find all the answers previously published on our dedicated page.