🚨BREAKING: Official autopsy report finds #GeorgeFloyd had #coronavirus. Hennepin County Medical Examiner's full report says he tested positive April 3. Wow. Every crisis in America is intersecting! #covid19
Confirmed here: postmortem nasal swab was taken, which confirmed that Floyd was positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It is noted that Floyd was known to be positive for COVID-19 on April 3. kstp.com/news/george-fl…
3) The postmortem positivity likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent PCR positivity from previous infection, the report said.
“pulmonary vascular tree is free of thromboemboli. The tracheobronchial tree is free of blood, edema fluid, or foreign material” ➡️ likely recovered
“pulmonary vascular tree is free of thromboemboli. The tracheobronchial tree is free of blood, edema fluid, or foreign material” ➡️ likely recovered
4) Thus, given the lack of clinical lung symptoms, and the long time from his first April 3 positive test and his death on May 25th, 2020... it’s not clear, but looks less likely he died of #COVID19, but perhaps either with COVID19 or just leftover virus fragments in his system.
5) The independent autopsy also supports his death due to police misconduct as the underlying cause.
6) The same arguments about Floyd’s other heart disease also applies here with the COVID test result. The triggering event is the police assault.
7) Good to revisit the issues behind of UNDERLYING CAUSE:
8) Reminder - the most critical thing on a death certificate is the underlying cause-of-death, defined as: "the disease or injury which initiated the train of events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury.”
9) Back to #GeorgeFloydMurder -his death was likely homocide precipitated by police kneeling his weight on top of Floyd for 9 min, not really his heart disease or likely recovered COVID. Focus on the initiating factor in “underlying cause of death”. That’s what matters most.
10) As reminder, the average disease illness duration of #COVID19 is around 20 days since infection, which is much shorter than 50 days from first April test to late May death. While virus shedding can last that long, virus shedding is mostly dead virus fragments, says research.
11) Yes, I’ve seen this report of a woman kept testing positive for 50 days. But we know that this isn’t = infectious for 50 days. Broken virus fragments can easily test positive w/out being infectious. Singapore changed how it defines recovered this way. cbsnews.com/news/coronavir…
12) In Singapore they changed the rules to discharge at 21 days if no more symptoms instead of waiting endlessly for positive PCR test to cease for this reason. We now know test not equal to infectious.
