Posted on 06/04/2020 5:40:15 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
(Reuters) - George Floyd, whose fatal encounter with Minneapolis police stirred a global outcry over racial bias by U.S. law enforcement, tested positive for the coronavirus, his autopsy showed, but the infection was not listed as a factor in his death.
The official cause of death, according to the full 20-page report made public on Wednesday by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, was cardiopulmonary arrest while Floyd was being restrained by police taking him into custody on May 25.
The coroner ruled the manner of death to be a homicide.
The autopsy, in listing cardiopulmonary arrest as the cause of Floyd’s death, also cited “complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.”
The report listed several additional factors as “significant conditions” contributing to Floyd’s death, including heart disease, high blood pressure and intoxication from the powerful opioid fentanyl, as well as recent methamphetamine use.
The report further noted that a nasal swab sample collected from Floyd’s body came back positive for COVID-19, and that Floyd had also tested positive on April 3, nearly eight weeks before his death.
The county’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, concluded that the post mortem test result “most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent ... positivity from previous infection.” There was no indication in the autopsy report that coronavirus played any role in Floyd’s death.
Dr. Michael Baden, one of two medical examiners who conducted a private autopsy for Floyd’s family, told the New York Times that county officials never told him, or the funeral director, that Floyd had tested positive for COVID-19.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Re: “If there is no knee on his back/throat, for almost 9 minutes, he does not die that day.”
You might want to scan through the autopsy report.
They found no trauma of any kind to the dead man’s neck and throat.
Yes you are correct. I am so glad you read that. The way the rest works is ther the swab is placed in reagent that amplifies the viral RNA. It does not measure active or inactive. We know that the positives after about 10 days are likely inactivated or dead viral particles
The larger point here is that from a medical perspective it makes no sense to test people who don’t have symptoms or mild symptoms for a disease that 99%+ of patients have no or mild symptoms. In medicine you don’t order tests that will not change your treatment plan.
In some ways this is painting the true picture of the benign nature of this virus and that the shut down was fear not science driven
Like Paul Harvey says now you know the rest of the story
Thanks for taking the time to look at the science.
And yet they ruled it a homicide
will they also televise the funeral of the Retired Police Officer who was also a black person, who was killed while guarding his friends business???
just wondering...
At this house our TV will go OFF...and I'll scrub the kitchen floor...
Re: “And yet they ruled it a homicide”
Perhaps you can give me a quick summary of how they drew a line of criminal liability from an injury free neck and throat to cardiopulmonary arrest?
If you discussed this in an earlier Comment, just send me the Comment #.
Thanks.
so this question is a little outside my lane, but I think I have the answer. It is subject, however, to more expert verification than mine as I am by training a critical care anesthesiologist, not a forensic pathologist.
That being said, the Medical Examiner rules on the cause of death. Criminal Liability is determined by the State Attorney in context of the evidence presented. The medical examiner is only ruling on how he died, not the criminality of it. The designation homicide means killed by another person. For example if I get hit by a car walking down the middle of the interstate, it is a homicide. The other rulings are suicide and natural causes. So in this case (from my understanding) the pathologist is ruling that this was NOT natural causes (like a heart attack) and not suicide. He is ruling that but for the actions of the police (or perhaps some other as yet to be determined human) the victim would not have died.
If I am incorrect, I stand to be corrected and educated, but this is my understanding of the process
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