While the bodies of the deceased play only a small part in spreading pandemics, it is possible for corpses to cause infections in living individuals. In fact, according to two preprint papers published in MedRxiv and BioRxiv this year, the novel coronavirus can persist in cadavers for around two weeks and can preserve its infectious potential throughout that time.
For years now, specialists have held that infectious diseases — despite their transmissibility among the living — seldom stick around for a long enough period of time to leap from dead bodies and into living ones.
And although several studies have identified small amounts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in corpses for as many as 17 days following their deaths, scientists typically consider these traces as too minor to pose a significant threat of transmission.
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That said, a team of researchers recently revealed ...
