With figures approaching a hundred deaths per day, Ximo Puig has ordered an express burial service to be established in the face of the avalanche of deaths from Covid. The option is burial or cremation. But the period following death is not optional: the bodies of those who die as a result of Covid must be buried or cremated within 24 hours and not mount up in hospital mortuaries or funeral parlours whilst they await disposal.

The order has been embodied in an instruction issued by the Minister of Health, by which additional measures are agreed in relation to the burial of people who died from coronavirus.

The Valencian Government’s explanation does not hide the seriousness of the situation in the face of the high number of deaths: “The spread of the Covid-19 disease at this time makes it necessary that all health security and hygiene measures are taken extreme and, among them, those relating to the treatment of the bodies of people who die from this disease.