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Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine 1/2022

01-01-2022 | Coronavirus | Case Report

Dying of VOC-202012/01 — multimodal investigations in a death case of the SARS-CoV-2 variant

Authors: Fabian Heinrich, Carina Romich, Tamara Zimmermann, Inga Kniep, Antonia Fitzek, Stefan Steurer, Markus Glatzel, Dominik Nörz, Thomas Günther, Manja Czech-Sioli, Nicole Fischer, Adam Grundhoff, Marc Lütgehetmann, Benjamin Ondruschka

Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine | Issue 1/2022

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Abstract

The current pandemic with Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 has been taking on new dynamics since the emergence of new variants last fall, some of them spreading more rapidly. Many countries currently find themselves in a race to ramp up vaccination strategies that have been initiated and a possible third wave of the pandemic from new variants, such as the Variant of Concern-202012/01 from the B.1.1.7 lineage. Until today, many investigations in death cases of Coronavirus-disease-19 have been conducted, revealing pulmonary damage to be the predominant feature of the disease. Thereby, different degrees of macroscopic and microscopic lung damage have been reported, most of them resembling an Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Far more, systemic complications of the disease such as pulmonary embolisms have been described. However, neither morphologic nor virologic findings of patients dying of the new variants have yet been reported. Here, we report on a comprehensive analysis of radiologic, morphologic, and virologic findings in a fatal case of this variant.
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Metadata
Title
Dying of VOC-202012/01 — multimodal investigations in a death case of the SARS-CoV-2 variant
Authors
Fabian Heinrich
Carina Romich
Tamara Zimmermann
Inga Kniep
Antonia Fitzek
Stefan Steurer
Markus Glatzel
Dominik Nörz
Thomas Günther
Manja Czech-Sioli
Nicole Fischer
Adam Grundhoff
Marc Lütgehetmann
Benjamin Ondruschka
Publication date
01-01-2022
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
International Journal of Legal Medicine / Issue 1/2022
Print ISSN: 0937-9827
Electronic ISSN: 1437-1596
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02618-8

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