It's often recommended that people who handle bodies suspected of carrying pandemic like disease (think plague, etc) to take great caution in doing so-by wearing protective gear while handling them.
But in many countries the dead are attended to by their families for washing, dressing and laying out the corpse for viewing.
It has recently been discovered that people who died of Covid have a higher lingering level of infection remaining in their bodies, and that the virus can transmit through the handling of the corpse.
Why didn't we figure this one out sooner? Mostly because we have never had a pandemic like this.I do wonder if this happened during the Flu pandemic of 1918, too? Possibly.
(free read)
The Coronavirus May Spread From Corpses, Scientists Report