Autopsies of COVID-19 deceased? Absolutely!

JP Sperhake - Legal Medicine, 2020 - Elsevier
Autopsies are an essential tool for understanding new diseases. Against this background, it
is incomprehensible why there is great reluctance worldwide to perform autopsies on COVID-
19 deceased patients. The article provides an overview of the status of the autopsy series
published worldwide and shows the path taken by the city of Hamburg in Germany, where
autopsies are ordered by the health authorities in the interests of disease control. The risk of
infection posed by SARS-CoV-2-positive deceased persons may be overestimated. The …