In early 2021, rising COVID-19 deaths strained crematoria and funeral administration across the Mexico City metropolitan area. Hearses lined up outside a government office for death-related paperwork, a process that could take four to five hours. Cremation then involved another wait of twenty-four to thirty-six hours, while separate reporting found that some families faced an average wait of about eight days.
What distinguishes this wait is that two queues followed a single death. Vehicles first waited for documents, and families then waited for limited cremation capacity. This is not a story about admirable patience; it is a record of an epidemic overwhelming both administrative procedure and the physical capacity to cremate the dead.