#George Floyd tested positive for coronavirus in April, full autopsy reveals

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George Floyd with his daughter Gianna in an undated family photo.
Floyd family/Handout

George Floyd had tested positive for the coronavirus in April, though it was not a factor in his death, his full autopsy has revealed.

Floyd was likely no longer symptomatic when four Minneapolis police officers killed him during an arrest on Monday, according to Dr. Andrew Baker, the chief medical examiner at Hennepin County.

“Since … positivity for [COVID-19] can persist for weeks after the onset and resolution of clinical disease, the autopsy result most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent … positivity from previous infection,” Baker wrote in the report, which was released Wednesday with the permission of Floyd family.

The full 20-page report maintains that Floyd’s death was a homicide — that he died when his heart stopped while officer Derek Chauvin compressed his neck in the widely viewed video of his arrest.

Though Floyd’s family had conducted an independent autopsy that was released this week and ruled differently — that Floyd’s homicide was caused by asphyxia from both neck and back compression due to the weight fellow officer Thomas Lane pressed on his abdomen.

Chauvin, Lane, and the two other officers who assisted in the arrest, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao have all been fired and charged with felonies.

The medical examiner’s office’s findings included “other significant conditions” of Floyd’s: heart disease, fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine — details released in the initial report that angered Floyd’s family attorney, Benjamin Crump.

Crump Tuesday said the inclusion of those conditions, which were not ruled to be a factor in his death in either autopsy, was an attempt to assassinate Floyd’s character ahead of the officers’ trials.

Along with the positive COVID-19 test, the full autopsy detailed Floyd had suffered from blunt-force injuries to his face, shoulders, hands, arms and legs; bruises on his wrists from handcuffs; and a broken rib during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.