Shipping containers and refrigerated trucks are lined up near the Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island. They will be used by hospitals as temporary morgues for coronavirus victims.

More than 7,300 people have already died from COVID-19 in New York City, according to Johns Hopkins University, out of more than 10,000 deaths statewide. Governor Andrew Cuomo and his counterparts from five neighboring states are currently trying to figure out how to exit the lockdown without worsening the outbreak.

Days earlier, New York City officials hired contract laborers to bury the dead in "potter's field" on Hart Island, as the city's daily death rate from the coronavirus epidemic hit grim new records in each of the last three days.