America’s elected coroners are too often a public-health liability

IN FLU SEASONS past, James Gill never worried about how the death certificates his office produced might be received by grieving families. As Connecticut’s chief medical examiner, he oversees investigations for about two-thirds of all deaths in the state, and his work is not usually the stuff of controversy. Covid-19 changed that. Relatives sometimes question whether covid was the cause of their loved one’s demise; some want the virus removed from the death certificate. Dr Gill, a civil servant, is insulated from such pressure. That is not so in many parts of America.