JOHANNESBURG – The coffin-maker knew death too well. The boxes were stacked in his echoing workshop like the prows of ships waiting for passengers.
COVID-19 was turning his business upside down. Then it moved into his home. Casey Pillay’s wife was a midwife, delivering babies for coronavirus-positive mothers in Johannesburg, the epicenter of the pandemic in South Africa — once fifth in the world in number of cases — and on the continent.That she would be infected, they knew, was a matter of time.When she fell ill during the country’s surge in cases, she retreated to the main bedroom.