Weeks before his death from police violence, Floyd tested positive.
George Floyd tested positive for coronavirus weeks before his death, an autopsy report released Wednesday shows.
His death in custody in Minneapolis last week sparked an avalanche of protests over police mistreatment of black people.
The 20-page document released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office says an April 3 test on Floyd, 46, tested positive for the genetic code for the virus, or RNA, according to NBC News.
The autopsy says that because that RNA can remain in someone’s body for weeks after the disease has disappeared, a second positive test after his death likely meant that Floyd was asymptomatic when he died on May 25.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that a positive RNA test does not necessarily mean that the virus is infectious.
It was not immediately clear if Floyd developed symptoms in early April or if he was an asymptomatic carrier.
A Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin faces second-degree murder and other charges after pressing his knee to Floyd’s neck for eight minutes while Floyd was lying on his stomach in handcuffs.
Floyd was suspected of using a counterfeit $ 20 bill.
The video of a witness to Floyd’s death sparked outrage in the United States and the immediate dismissal of Chauvin and three other officers who were involved in his arrest.
Charges were announced Wednesday against three other officers, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng.
The medical examiner’s office said earlier this week that Floyd’s death was a homicide that occurred while police detained him.
His cause of death was classified as “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating neck compression.”
The medical examiner listed other “important” conditions underlying his death, including hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl poisoning, and recent use of methamphetamine.
Those findings contrasted with an independent autopsy performed by pathologists for Floyd’s family.
That autopsy concluded that he had no underlying medical problems that contributed to his death.
Pathologists also said that he died after blood and air flow were cut to his brain, causing him to die from mechanical suffocation.