‘We can’t stop death.’ But funerals must change as coronavirus spreads, Beshear says.
Kentucky funeral homes are struggling this week to adapt to the global coronavirus pandemic that is bringing most everything in Kentucky — except death — to a screeching halt.
After the federal government said Monday that people should not gather in groups larger than 10, Gov. Andy Beshear recommended Tuesday that viewings and funerals should include only immediate family, with larger memorial services delayed until the COVID-19 crisis passes.
“Even though a funeral is something that everybody wants to go to, we’re just at a place right now where that can’t be the case,” Beshear said.
The Funeral Directors Association of Kentucky is asking its members to follow Beshear’s guidelines.
Balancing the needs of a grieving family with the requirement to practice social distancing is difficult, if not impossible, according to several funeral home directors.
Virginia Kerr Zoller, co-owner of Kerr Brothers Funeral Homes, said the company is doing its best to meet federal guidelines. She’s wiping down surfaces, giving out hand sanitizer and encouraging families to limit funerals to only immediate family for the moment.
In one recent case, a church insisted it would only hold a funeral for the immediate family, Zoller said. Churches were instructed to close to in-person services last week and the Catholic Diocese of Lexington officially suspended public mass until further notice on Monday.
Crowds at funerals tend to skew older, which is a particular concern since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that people older than 60 avoid all crowds and stay home as much as possible. Kerr said she has been encouraging people’s elderly relatives to stay home.
She’s also been working on a plan to install cameras in the funeral home’s chapels so that services can be streamed live for people who cannot attend.
Zoller insisted the funeral home will remain open through the crisis.
“We will not close,” Zoller said. “That’s just not something we’re going to do.”
Others are more hesitant to take Beshear’s advice, at least for now.
Rev. John Taylor, the owner of Hawkins-Taylor Funeral Home in Lexington, said Tuesday the only thing he has changed about his services is how people were greeted.
“We did do the elbow bump,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he’s working with families to accommodate their needs. For some, having a memorial service at a later date isn’t an option, he said. And he’s not pressuring people into making any specific decisions about the size of a funeral.
“My job is to do what the family wants me to do,” Taylor said. “I wouldn’t necessarily ask to delay because some people don’t have time to delay.”
Joey Tucker, the general manager of Milward Funeral Directors, said he is taking precautions and following guidance from the Kentucky Medical Association, the CDC and the Funeral Directors Association of Kentucky.
He said the public has been reacting well to the precautions the government is asking them to take and that many are choosing to delay a larger ceremony until restrictions on large crowds are lifted.
“We certainly don’t want to deprive people at their most difficult time, but we want to give them the most practical information,” Tucker said.
Tucker said he recently had one family who chose not to have a reception after a funeral because of coronavirus concerns. The family didn’t have much choice, though, since the venue said it could no longer hold a large gathering.
Meanwhile, funeral homes insist they will keep doing their jobs, even if the crisis escalates. In Italy, where the death toll is more than 2,500, there have been backlogs in getting people buried and small ceremonies are limited to immediate family.
Sidney Fogle, executive director of the Funeral Directors Association of Kentucky, said funeral homes are “fully equipped” to handle a spike in deaths.
The funeral homes stressed they will not close during the epidemic.
“As a country, as a state, as a city, we’ve stopped everything,” Taylor said. “But we can’t stop death.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2020 at 1:15 PM.
