I mean, common sense would tell me hell no. But… what if you waited like 72 hours before a transplant? I’m still guessing no.
I don’t think organs would still be suitable for transplant after that long.
I want to make a pitch for something that many people don’t know about.
You can donate your corneas no matter what your cause of death, with very few exceptions.
When I was in college, a friend of mine sadly died of the meningitis that goes through dorms sometimes-- missed the vaccine by just a few years. Anyway, at his memorial, his mother mentioned that he had wanted to be an organ donor, but his death made that impossible. However, he was still able to donate his corneas.
I remembered this, so, 20 years later, when my father died of pancreatic cancer, we were able to donate his corneas as well.
It may be that because not much is known about COVID-19, people’s corneas are not being used, but I’m guessing that they are, since a lot is known about coronaviruses in general.
So if you are making an advanced directive, having discussions with relatives, or whatever, and you want to donate organs, mention this.
corpses – and viruses – don’t die just because the person is dead. Galvani was demonstrating muscle action in frog legs that had been detached from dead frogs. Parts of people will last in good condition as long as you handle them appropriately. Which is difficult to impossible for some parts, for short lengths of time, and possible to easy for other parts for longer lengths of time – they’ve run cancer cells for decades, and skin cells for burn victims routinely for weeks.
The problem is, if you handle the body parts so well that the cells don’t die, the infected cells don’t die, and the virons don’t die, and unless you do something like cleaning isolated cells (which is standard when you want clean isolated cells for research), then you can’t clean the body parts or selectively kill the virus.