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As Cook County marked 10,000 confirmed deaths from coronavirus-related causes Wednesday, never before have the doctors, investigators and technicians at the medical examiner’s office had to handle so many dead in one year.
They have dealt with more than 700 dead during the 1995 Chicago heat wave, the 273 people killed in the 1979 crash of Flight 191 and the remains of the 33 young men slain by John Wayne Gacy. But as Cook County marked 10,000 confirmed deaths from coronavirus-related causes Wednesday, never before have the doctors, investigators and technicians at the medical examinerâs office had to handle so many dead in one year. That number suggests a jarring number of residents will have lost at least one friend, family member or co-worker to the pandemic, while each medical professional, emergency re...