The Coronavirus In India: The Gravedigger At New Delhi's Only COVID-19 Burial Ground Is Afraid

His father and grandfather had raised him at a home allotted to them at the cemetery in the heart of New Delhi, but none of them have ever seen anything like this before — bodies arrived sealed in plastic bags, followed by mourners wearing hazmat suits.Jadeed Qabristan, the cemetery where Shameem lives and works was declared the city’s first burial ground for victims of COVID-19 after news reports that people were refusing to bury and cremate people who had died from the coronavirus. They will handle the rest.’”Family members put on PPE before burying the body of a loved one themselves.Shameem, his father and the other workers at the graveyard now stand at least ten feet away from the actual grave, overseeing the process.“It’s the farthest thing from a normal burial,” Shameem said. For people who died from the coronavirus, graves are 10 feet deep and are dug and filled by a mechanical earthmover.”These burials, in particular, have been incredibly difficult to watch, because family members must do all the work — lift the body from the hearse, bring it to the freshly dug grave, and then lower the body into the pit in a dignified manner to its final resting place.“Obviously they don’t know what to do because most of them have never done this work before, people don’t realize just how heavy the dead are,” he said.