A grieving wife was told to wait for up to three days for her husband's body to be collected after he died from suspected coronavirus.
Tami Treadwell, from Harlem in New York, says she was forced to put her husband Gregory on ice after he passed away in their home.
The 57-year-old claims emergency workers left him after performing CPR, forcing her to desperately search for someone to retrieve the corpse.
For the latest on the coronavirus pandemic, read our liveblog here
She was told by the city medical examiner’s office that it could take "three hours to three days" to pick his remains up, New York Post reports.
As the city of New York has become a hotspot for Covid-19 in the US, morgues and funeral homes have been overwhelmed by the surge in demand for their services.
Mrs Treadwell, a seafood truck owner, described her treatment as "grossly inhumane".
She says her family called more than 20 funeral homes before one in Englewood, New Jersey agreed to collect the father-of-four's body.
“I say shame on you Mayor de Blasio … you got to designate somebody to come get these bodies out of here, people who died at home," she said.
She told the New York Post that her 62-year-old husband had come home on Friday with a temperature after suffering a cold for five days.
A doctor had advised Mr Treadwell, who worked as a delivery driver for the company Nathel & Nathel, not to go to hospital and to stay at home.
“He has been working this whole time delivering things. He didn’t even want to stay home, because they need him so much at work," she explained.
"This is the worst thing that has ever happened," she added.
Police were called to the couple's apartment at 4.30am following reports of shots being fired.
Emergency workers were then called to the scene after they found an unresponsive man inside with no gunshot wounds.
Mr Treadwell's family deny that anyone reported that shots were fired.
The US now has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world.
Its total has now reached 738,830, and 39,014 people have lost their lives.
New York state alone now has more coronavirus cases than any other country outside the US, with 241,041.
Last week, it was revealed that victims of Covid-19 in New York have been buried in mass graves as the city struggles to cope with the pandemic.
Shocking images taken from a drone show workers using ladders to climb into a huge pit on Hart Island, off the Bronx.
The area has been used for mass burials for those who have no next-of-kin, or whose families can't afford funerals, for the past 150 years.
Typically, some 25 bodies are interred each week by low-paid jail inmates working on the island, which is accessible only by boat.
That number began increasing in March as the new coronavirus spread rapidly.
