I posted about a Missouri Coroner that misused his power to display something other than COVID. Posting this out today as a follow up.
Macon County’s official COVID death toll has been reduced “from upwards of 30 down to 19” because of Hayes’ actions, the Star reports. That reduced number can be found on the Missouri Department of Health Senior Service’s
COVID Dashboard as part of the official tally of COVID deaths.
Missouri is one of five states that doesn’t count probable COVID deaths (i.e. those missing a positive PCR test). At least one state health official told the Star that was a decision made by prior leadership, a reference to former health director Dr. Randall Williams. The process for counting a COVID death in Missouri can take up to five weeks in some cases, leading to discrepancies in data at the state, local and national levels.
Hayes said he made changes at the request of families because the thought of seeing COVID listed as a cause of death would be too much to handle.
“A lot of families were upset. They didn’t want COVID on the death certificates,” he told the
Star. “I won’t lie for them, it’s gotta be true, but I do what pleases the family.”
Hayes said he wouldn’t put COVID on death certificates when another significant factor could be given as the sole cause of death. The coroner cited examples like pneumonia in an elderly person or a grandparent who smoked all their life. (*this may the same man who wrote pneumonia on my MIL’s suicide. She was elderly, smoked her whole life and did have often have pneumonia but she swallowed every pill in her home according to the detective. He showed us photos of all the empty pill bottles thrown on the bathroom floor. She must have taken them all and laid down in her bed where my aged ill FIL found her. No note left.) I guess we’ll never know for sure. My husband was in the hospital at the time and I was alone with four little kids. I should have done due diligence. I was only 24 and didn’t have a clue…Like I said we didn’t see the death certificate for months later.
Coroner admits excluding COVID from death certificates | myfox8.com
COVID-19 is as much a political issue as a personal tragedy for some families. They don’t want the virus on any official record for their dead loved one.
For others, restrictions on hospital or nursing home visits made death and the grieving process almost unbearable. The word “COVID” had become a cruel reminder of how they couldn’t see their family members as they lay dying and, ultimately, of what they had lost.
So the solution: Leaving COVID-19 off the death certificate entirely — an ethically questionable approach frowned on by much of the U.S. medical community as it tries to ascertain the the deadly extent of the pandemic in rural sections of the country and halt its spread.
The Macon County coroner omitted COVID-19 on at least a half-dozen death certificates in cases where another major factor — pneumonia in an elderly patient or “you know, grandma had one lung and smoked all her life,” for example — could be justified as the sole cause of death.
In one Missouri county, coroner excludes COVID from death certificate if family asks
