Effect of first sixty-eight days of lockdown due to COVID-19 on autopsy cases in a tertiary care teaching hospital situated in a rural area of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

 COVID-19 virus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, and now it is a pandemic affecting many  countries globally including India. On 30th of January, 2020 India reported its first case of COVID-19 in Kerala and on 24th of March  2020; the Government of India ordered a nationwide first phase of lockdown for 21 days. Our study is to compare the number and  type of cases brought for medico legal autopsies in our institution during the complete lockdown period of first 68 days i.e., 25th of  March to 31st of May, 2020 versus the cases brought to the same mortuary during the same period of the years 2018 and 2019. In  total, 55 cases (42 were of males and 13 were of females) were brought to the mortuary in this lockdown period constituting 19% of  total case of 2020 as compared to 91(21%) cases and 99 cases (21%) in the years 2019 and 2018 respectively. Present study shows  drastic fall in motor vehicle accidents and shows increase in natural causes of deaths but the suicidal tendencies in the form of  hanging and poisoning remained almost same as compared to previous two years and did not increase.