Help with funeral costs for people who ve died from COVID-19 could be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, officials announced recently.
Family members can apply for financial assistance starting Monday, agency officials said in a news release.
Funding assistance will be available for COVID-19-related funeral expenses incurred after Jan. 20, 2020, and is through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
Ahead of Monday, agency officials have also issued a warning for families to beware of scams.
“We have received reports of scammers reaching out to people offering to register them for funeral assistance,” the agency’s website states. “FEMA has not sent any such notifications and we do not contact people prior to them registering for assistance.
“COVID has definitely made itself known,” said Dale Groce, the funeral home’s director.
North Carolina passed a dark threshold Tuesday: reporting more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. More than 40% of these deaths have come in the past two months ago. With their intimate vantage points on death and grief, funeral home staff have witnessed the toll of this significant human loss.
“It’s just been terrible walking people through this,” said David Breece of Rogers and Breece Funeral Home in Fayetteville. He lamented the many families who haven’t been able to say goodbye to loved ones in-person due to health restrictions. He recalled a husband hospitalized with COVID-19 who had to watch his wife’s funeral service through an iPad. She also was a victim of the virus.