Author’s reply: Letter to the Editor in response to Guerriero “Restriction of autopsies during the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy: prudence or fear?”

摘要

I appreciated the letter by Guerriero 1 , which gives us the chance to consider the COVID-19 situation and the effects on our activities. First of all, I think it is important to consider the urgency of the specific moment, at the time we produced the document with the society of forensic medicine. The intent was to secure our activities and the respect of our profession, so that the authorities governing our hospitals could be alerted that pathologists could perform autopsies even during COVID-19 but with certain conditions. The document gave all the criteria on “how to equip the pathology sector room to the highest levels of biosafety and how to equip and educate the operators with the best PPE and how to use it, and it was not conceived to lockdown the pathology departments in all Italian hospitals – even in those equipped and ready to deal with Coronavirus-2” 2 .