On average, about 1,000 people die each month statewide, according to a local mortuary, but the delta variant surge in August — mixed with funeral gathering restrictions — strained Hawaiʻi's mortuaries and crematoriums.
Preliminary numbers from the state Department of Health show total deaths in October jumped to 1,009 after falling to 852 in September. There were 1,224 deaths in August — the highest this year.
"That was, you know, when this delta variant was beginning to kind of peak here, and I don't have a correlation of the increase in the number of people passing to exactly to COVID. But there certainly was a spike," said Scott Power, president of Oʻahu Mortuary and Oʻahu Cemetery and Crematory.
Power said they went to double shifts at the crematory to accommodate the increase in deaths.
In July 2021, health officials recorded 1,015 total deaths — about 200 fewer than during the August surge.
"Looking back on it, I mean, we just got maxed out in terms of our staff, the number of calls we got, and things that we were trying to just deal with," Power said. "I think what was happening, what we experienced, is that when families would call us, they were hoping that the delta variant would begin to drop back down."
"So they were asking for us to have services, you know, later, and you know, maybe 30 days out, or 45 days out, so they could have more people attend," he said.
He said that when a service is delayed, the person who died has to be in a storage system for longer than usual.
"Our normal average... the capacity of our morgue would be in the 30 to 35 range and we peaked at 73, so just about double what we would normally expect to have in our care center at any one moment in time," Power told Hawaiʻi Public Radio.
Power said he's grateful that the COVID-19 case counts are subsiding and hopes there won’t be a resurgence.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Nov. 18, 2021.
