The report added that there is no evidence that the virus played a role in his death.
New York:
George Floyd, the African American, who died in police custody last month, had tested positive for the coronavirus in April, according to the medical examiner’s report.
A New York Times (NYT) report cited the full autopsy published by the Hennepin County medical examiner and said that the 46-year-old man had tested positive for coronavirus on April 3.
The county’s top forensic pathologist Andrew Baker said the Minnesota Department of Health had swabbed George Floyd’s nose after his death and had tested positive for the virus, according to the NYT report.
The positive result at the time of his death was likely a lasting positive result from his previous infection, according to the report.
The report added that there is no evidence that the virus played a role in his death.
Protests in New York and the United States escalated as thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand an end to police brutality after Floyd’s death when a white policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he was handcuffed and grounded out of breath. blows on May 25.
“Please, I can’t breathe,” were the last words of George Floyd and became a bugle call for protesters demanding action against police brutality.
Former New York medical examiner Michael Baden, one of two doctors who performed a private autopsy for George Floyd’s family last week, said county officials did not tell him that Floyd had been tested positive for COVID-19.
“The funeral director was not told, and we weren’t told, and now a lot of people are trying to get tested,” said Michael Baden.
“If you are doing the autopsy and it is positive for the coronavirus, it is usual to tell everyone who will be in contact with the body. There would have been more care,” he said.
Michael Baden said the four police officers who arrested Floyd should also be tested for COVID-19, along with some of the witnesses.
“I am not angry,” he said in the NYT report. “But there would have been more care.”
Michael Baden added in the NYT report that the full autopsy includes information that he did not have access to, such as toxicology results. Floyd had fentanyl in his system.
Michael Baden said that when he did the autopsy report, part of the heart was not provided – the part that showed coronary artery disease.
Lawrence Kobilinsky, forensic scientist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said he was struck by the difference between the official county autopsy and the results of Michael Baden’s private autopsy.
Kobilinsky said defense lawyers could update the amount of fentanyl in the body of George Floyd. The NYT report states that although the amount needed to be fatal varies from person to person, fentanyl can stop a person’s heart and breathing.
“It seems to me that it’s high enough for a defense lawyer to argue that this type of predisposition makes it heart failure when you take a drug like this,” said Kobilinsky.
Michael Baden admitted that the amount of fentanyl in George Floyd’s body was “considerable”, which would be particularly important if he had never used the drug before.
“There is enough that could be a cause of death if he had never had immunity or tolerance to the drug,” said Michael Baden in the NYT report, adding that “restraint is the cause of dead “.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, there are more than 1.8 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States with more than 107,000 deaths.
