Since the mid-1800s, New York City’s potter’s field on Hart Island, off the coast of the Bronx, has figured in numerous epidemics affecting New York City — as a burial ground during the Spanish Flu and AIDS crisis, and a quarantine spot for yellow fever and tuberculosis victims.

And now, with coronavirus deaths overwhelming the city’s morgue capacity, it is needed again.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that it was likely some coronavirus victims would be sent to Hart Island, where for 150 years New York City has buried its unclaimed dead and those whose families are too poor to afford private burials.

The city has already begun to drastically increase interments on the island, to around 24 a day, as many as it would bury there in a week before the pandemic hit, according to the city’s Department of Correction, which runs the burial operation on the island.

It is unclear if those recently increased burials include those who have died from the coronavirus, or if they are people who passed away before the pandemic and were being moved from morgues to create space for the newly dead.