September 3, 2020

SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance in Decedents in a Large Urban Medical Examiner’s Office

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Public Health Policy and Practice

Keywords (Tags): public health

• [Pre-print, not peer reviewed] The 7-day average percentage of SARS-CoV-2 test positivity among people who had died and were identified as possible recent COVID-19 cases and were posthumously tested (n=237) closely matched the trajectory of percent positivity in the catchment population, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office in Michigan.
• SARS-CoV-2 positive flagged decedents were more likely to be Black compared to a random sample of known positive decedents (89% vs 51%).

Brouwer et al. (Aug 7, 2020). SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance in Decedents in a Large Urban Medical Examiner’s Office. Pre-print downloaded Sep 3 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.03.20162883