Washington: The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday released the full autopsy report for George Floyd, showing he’d tested positive for the coronavirus and was likely asymptomatic when he died last week while being arrested by police in Minnesota.
In the 20-page report, the medical examiner said that Floyd had tested positive for the deadly and infectious coronavirus on April 3, and a postmortem nasal swab collected the day after his day on May 26 proved positive for the virus, though he was most probably asymptomatic from the earlier infection.
“Since PCR positivity for 2019-nCoV RNA can persist for weeks after the onset of clinical disease, the autopsy result most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent PCR positivity from previous infection,” the report read, referring to the novel coronavirus by an abbreviation.
The release of the report nine days after Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed while being detained by a white police officer, was with the consent of the victim’s family and legal representatives, the medical examiner’s office said in a statement.
