In August 2024, social media posts began to circulate again claiming that the Covid-19 virus “was never identified” and that autopsies were banned during the pandemic, describing them as the “only method to determine the cause of death.” But the claims are false, and had already been circulating during the health crisis that began in 2020. SARS-CoV-2 was isolated on several occasions and in multiple laboratories, and although autopsies were discouraged in cases of death from Covid-19 due to the risk of contagion, the practice was not banned.
“All COVID Death Certificates are FALSE public documents. Because the supposed virus was never identified and autopsies, the only objective method to know the cause of a person’s death, were prohibited.”reads a post on X which was quickly replicated in Instagram, Facebook y Telegram.
Screenshot of a post on X made on September 3, 2024
The posts began circulating days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Covid-19 vaccines for the 2024-2025 period, tailored to circulating variants of the virus. The updates correspond to the vaccines Comirnaty, Spikevax, Modern y Pfizer-BioNTech.
The covid-19 virus was isolated and sequenced
The message on social media claims that Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was never “individualized”This is a claim that has been circulating since 2020 and that AFP Factual has verified on several occasions (1, 2).
Isolating a virus involves extracting it from an infected organism and propagating it in cell culture for study. Sequencing refers to the process that allows you to decipher your genetic code.
He first scientific article The first study in the world that made SARS-CoV-2 known was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 2020, and details how the virus was isolated from patients in Wuhan, China, to be studied in cell cultures.
Juan Sabattéa physician, doctor in microbiology and researcher at CONICET, Argentina, told AFP Factual in This verification to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 has not been isolated is “untenable”.
“Numerous laboratories around the world have isolated and sequenced the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and there are already thousands of scientific publications analyzing different characteristics of the virus.”he explained then. “In it INBIRSIn our laboratory, we have carried out several isolations and have sequenced the genome of the purified viruses in order to find out which variants they correspond to.”Sabatté added.
Autopsies in cases of Covid-19 were not banned
As AFP Factual also verified (1, 2, 3), although autopsies in cases of deaths from Covid-19 were discouraged during the pandemic due to the risk of contagion, they were not prohibited. In March 2020, the WHO published guidelines for the “Safe management of dead bodies in the context of COVID-19”procedures that were updated in September of that year.
The document states that if an autopsy is performed on the corpse of a patient with covid-19, suspected or confirmed, “Healthcare facilities must ensure that safety measures have been taken” to protect those who carry out the practice.
Health authorities in countries such as Argentina, Colombia, Peru, USA, Spain y Belgiumamong others, also published recommendations for the management of corpses in probable or confirmed cases of COVID-19.
It is also false that the autopsy is the “the only objective method to determine the cause of a person’s death”as the viral post points out. Eduardo Enrique Cammarotaa University Medical Examiner from Argentina, told AFP Factual in September 2024 that autopsies are performed based on what they want to find. “If you want to determine the cause of death of a patient who died at home without a doctor who can certify with a death certificate why he died, an autopsy is performed, because it is a questionable death.”.
However, in the cases of patients with covid-19 “The autopsy will only determine elements, for example, the state of the lungs, but it will not demonstrate [la presencia] of covid-19″the specialist stated.
“Covid-19 in an institutionalized patient is confirmed by the [test] PCR and medical history, that is, it is not necessary to perform an autopsy on that patient to verify [que tiene la infección]”Cammarota explained.
According to a Guide published on April 28, 2020 According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a death from covid-19 is defined “such as a death resulting from a clinically compatible disease, in a probable or confirmed case of COVID-19, unless there is an alternative cause of death that cannot be related to the disease (e.g. trauma)”.
Furthermore, the document clarifies that “A death from Covid-19 cannot be attributed to another disease (e.g. cancer), and should be counted regardless of pre-existing conditions suspected of triggering a severe course of Covid-19”.
“Covid-19 must be noted/recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death for ALL deceased where the disease caused, or is presumed to have caused or contributed to death”reads the PAHO document.
