Marion Renault
NEW YORK - The COVID-19 pandemic has helped revive the autopsy.
When the virus first arrived in U.S. hospitals, doctors could only guess what was causing its strange constellation of symptoms: What could explain why patients were losing their sense of smell and taste, developing skin rashes, struggling to breathe and reporting memory loss on top of flu-like coughs and aches?
At hospital morgues, which have been steadily losing prominence and funding over several decades, pathologists were busily dissecting the diseaseâs first victims â and finding some answers.
âWe were getting emails from clinicians, kind of desperate, asking, âWhat are you seeing?ââ said NYU Langoneâs Dr. Amy Rapkiewicz. âAutopsy,â she pointed out, means to see for yourself. âThatâs exactly what we had to do.â