So many people are dying at the hands of the coronavirus in California that mortuaries are running out of space to store bodies.
State officials are dispatching refrigerated trucks across the state to hold corpses, as the rising COVID-19 death toll is causing funeral homes to fill up, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The move comes as funeral homes now have the miserable job of turning away grieving families who have lost loved ones, because they simply don't have the capacity.
LA county alone has seen over 11,000 deaths due to the deadly virus since the beginning of the pandemic, with an average of over 170 people dying in the city every day.
Experts are worried the situation will only get worse thanks to widespread travel during the holidays. "We believe things will get worse as we get into January," top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told NPR.
LA has now become the epicenter of the pandemic, with more confirmed cases and deaths than any other county in the country, according to the John Hopkins coronavirus tracker.
The California National Guard was called in to help in the county last week, moving corpses from morgues into storage at the LA County Department of the Medical Examiner-Coroner, according to the LA Times.
The rest of the country isn't faring much better. The US surpassed 4,000 daily deaths — and it's expected to get a lot worse soon.
Over 365,000 Americans have lost their lives since the beginning of the pandemic to date.
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More on the situation: MORE THAN 4,000 AMERICANS DIED FROM COVID YESTERDAY