Is the role of forensic medicine in the covid-19 pandemic underestimated?

Abstract

We believe that forensic medicine should play a significant role in the COVID-19 pandemic. Forensic pathologists should ask and answer various questions through autopsy cases during the COVID-19 period, thus providing a significant contribution to science. Some of the potential roles of forensic medicine in this issue include: determining the exact cause of death among the deceased who were SARS-CoV-2 positive, contribution to the accuracy of mortality statistics, understanding pathological mechanisms of COVID-19, tracking the presence of the virus over time, survival of the virus after death as well as dealing with medicolegal issues. A detailed multidisciplinary analysis of autopsy samples would undoubtedly help understand this new illness and its clinical management. Therefore, autopsies during the COVID-19 pandemic should not be an exception, but certainly a rule. © 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.