Shane Ferrari, the sheriff of New Mexico, is used to preparing ahead to purchase goods like ammunition that have become scarce due to the pandemic.
He’s also had to acquire enough coffins and storage for COVID-19 victims who are piling up at the family funeral parlour he’s been running for the past year.
When Ferrari’s father, the previous manager, died of COVID-19 last December, he took over the funeral business in Farmington, which is located in San Juan County in the state’s northwest region.
According to Reuters statistics, San Juan has one of the highest per-capita COVID-19 fatality rates in New Mexico, which is one of the top five U.S. states in new cases for the week ending December 5.
San Juan, like other U.S. counties near the top of the virus death rankings, is rural, has pockets of inadequate immunisation, and heavily supported former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Ferrari’s funeral home is seeing three times as many cases as usual, with COVID-19 deaths accounting for around three-quarters of the total. He intends to purchase an additional refrigerated unit over the weekend.
“I pray every day, ‘Use me as your instrument, put me where you need me,’ and I never imagined I’d be sheriff and running a funeral home in the middle of a pandemic,” Ferrari, 45, said from his office, which is filled with Navajo sand drawings and weavings that his father traded for products.
San Juan’s morticians and grave diggers deal with COVID-19 deaths throughout their “four-corners” territory, which includes the Navajo Nation, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, without regard for politics or vaccination.
“We’re in the thick of a pandemic, and we’re human,” said Ferrari, a 25-year police veteran and registered Republican who dismisses suggestions that he run for governor.
Ferrari’s deputies visit the houses of deceased COVID-19 patients during the day to inform their family of their deaths. He spends his evenings planning their interment.
A high schooler works a backhoe at the neighbouring Kirtland Fruitland Cemetery to keep up with COVID-19 burials. She is the third generation of her family to perform community duty by digging graves. Penny Washburn, her mother, claims that they have dug as many sites in just over a year as they would ordinarily do in 10 to 15 years.
Ferrari’s cremation machine is operated by Joanna Martinez, 34. She works all night to get ashes to bereaved families who may have to wait up to a month owing to COVID-19 paperwork.
COVID-19 positive bodies are identified by a red tag on their white bags. Martinez carries another body out for cremation and transfers the other one into its place because there is no more refrigerated space.
Martinez, who has a woman death “La Catrina” tattoo on her right arm, says, “It’s basically like playing body Tetris, deciding out where you’re going to place who, where.”
She is unvaccinated and has had family members who have died as a result of COVID-19.
“If I’m going to die, I’m going to die, no matter what. I’m not going to be terrified in this room “she stated
Because New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the country, Ferrari will sometimes accept hunting equipment or household goods as a down payment from a family who cannot afford the $1,895 cremation fee.
He sees acquaintances lose loved ones to COVID-19 “on a regular basis” and advises residents to stay at home and wear masks if they do not wish to be vaccinated. He also notices an increase in the number of persons receiving immunizations.
Ferrari, who previously had COVID-19 and expects to get vaccinated this month, said, “I think the critics have a propensity to stop and take a second look at things the minute they lose someone who is dear to them.”
