0001Anonymous
2020/04/14(Tue) 14:52:26.75We’re committed to keeping our readers informed.
We’ve removed our paywall from essential coronavirus news stories. Become a subscriber to support our journalists. Subscribe now.
Uncertainty has been the trademark of both the economic and public health crises caused by the coronavirus. Occasionally that’s not a bad thing — like in the emerging consensus that the initial models for case fatality rates and ICU beds needed were too high.
But over the last few days, several new reports on the nature of the coronavirus showed how much more we need to learn about the virus before the effects of reopening the country can be fully anticipated.
Below are four such alarming studies — though approach with some caution, as the clinical understanding of the outbreak continues to change as testing expands.
Scientists report a case of a body infecting a live patient
Let’s begin with the most morbid detail: Thailand is now reporting the first fatal case of coronavirus that was transmitted from a deceased patient to a medical examiner.
“Not just the medical examiners, but morgue technicians and the people in funeral homes need to take extra care,” Angelique Corthals, a professor of pathology at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told BuzzFeed News.
With the high daily death count pushing the capacity of morgues in cities across the country, the concern that bodies could transmit the virus is especially alarming, considering pictures from Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit showing bodies piled in vacant spaces in the facility.
