As if things were not bad enough, it appears now that not only in life, but even after death a coronavirus-positive person can infect others. Thailand has reported the first case of COVID-19 being transmitted from a dead patient to a medical examiner. This is also a cause for concern to those working in a morgue or in funeral homes. 

“Not just the medical examiners, but morgue technicians and the people in funeral homes need to take extra care,” said Angelique Corthals, a professor of pathology at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice as per a Buzzfeed report. 

AFP

“It is a real concern,” he added. 

“This is the first report on COVID-19 infection and death among medical personnel in a Forensic Medicine unit,” said a Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine study. 

“The disinfection procedure used in operation rooms might be applied in pathology/forensic units too,” it also said. 

AFP

The authors of this journal are Won Sriwijitalai of the RVT Medical Center in Bangkok and Viroj Wiwanitkit of China’s Hainan Medical University. 

“At present, there is no data on the exact number of COVID-19 contaminated corpses since it is not a routine practice to examine for COVID-19 in dead bodies in Thailand,” it added. 

AFP

Thailand has reported just over 2500 cases while worldwide more than 20 lakh are infected. The overall death toll is over 136,000. 

The world is still learning new things about the virus and it will be some time before things return to normal. WHO has already declared it a pandemic and also officially said it is 10 times more deadly than Swine Flu. We are being held hostage by this disease and lockdowns have been declared in most countries.