During normal times, Joe Ruggiero Jr. might hold 25 funerals a month; this April there have been 71. Due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, his family’s funeral home in East Boston is so overrun that the tribute lounge and cafe normally used to display portraits of the departed has been turned into a makeshift storage space. A thin white sheet of plastic held together with binder clips is all that sepa
![The Big Picture - The Boston Globe](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/2c5e1df3e58d1b499c6ead09bca466a4fe39d8ab/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fc.o0bg.com%2Frw%2FSysConfig%2FWebPortal%2FBostonGlobe%2FFramework%2Fimages%2Flogo-bg.jpg)