SC coroners explain process of removing COVID-19 from incorrect death certificates
"Richland County Coroner Gary Watts says of his county’s 263 COVD-19 deaths, he’s removed the virus from three death certificates. “If I have a death certificate, and someone says it’s COVID, and they weren’t tested, I have changed that,” Watts explained.
Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher says of her county’s 173 COVID-19 deaths, she’s changed five. “We reached out to DHEC and said we have these death certificates, and family is saying they need to be changed,” Fisher noted. “I asked do we have the right to do that, and she said yes, of course.”
Coroner Fisher says she’s found COVID-19 sometimes incorrectly appears on a death certificate because the doctor wasn’t personally involved in writing it. She says they sometimes have a staff member who writes them. She also believes medical certifiers occasionally miss things. “It’s a constant check and balance with us,” said Fisher. “Every death certificate that comes across us, we are responsible for it, and we like to have our numbers accurate.”
This drives me crazy. Colorado did the same thing— counting only those people who’d tested positive for COVID in death statistics. Purportedly “to make numbers more accurate” but some think the change was made to reassure citizens while making Jittery Politicians look good.
Limiting COVID death stats to people that tested positive is a misleading approach that understates the problem and may mask important trends. That’s because without a positive COVID test, in CO you didn’t die of COVID no-one even if all the facts and common sense point to COVID as COD.
There a slew of reasons a victim may not have been tested:
o testing supply shortages
o no local testing facilities
o financial concerns/no health insurance
o limited mobility/transportation challenges
o reluctance to leave home for fear of catching COVID
o belief that “it’s just a cold”
o asymptomatic until sudden decline.
And is it safe to assume every hospitalized COVID patient is tested? Perhaps a COVID patient arrives at the hospital and isn’t tested because the exhausted staff is confident it’s COVID and immediately starts treatment. Or patient dies in the hospital before being tested and they skip testing the dead guy to try to save someone still alive?
How many people die of COVID without being tested? There’s no way to know for sure but at least we had an idea of magnitude when probable cases were also tracked. Now, we have no clue and no indication if that number starts going up or down. And if for some reason we can no longer test, Colarado’s COVID deaths will immediately drop to zero.
Not sure if this is the case in FL, but here even a positive test is no guarantee a COVID death will be counted. That’s because Powers That Be decided months ago that coroners are to decide whether a COVID-positive person died of the virus or something else. Mucking up statistical data even more with yet another uncontrolled variable
When a COVID positive patient dies, there’s generally no autopsy—the coroner simply reviews patient files. If a patient dies because an underlying condition was aggravated by COVID, the underlying condition may be cited as cause of death. Or not. One coroner may conclude Patient X died of COVID while a different coroner might find the same patient died from an asthma attack, PE, stroke or heart disease. And either is be acceptable because Coroners have been given very little guidance. Personally I think the standard should be “But not for COVID, would this person likely still be alive today?”. And there are no standards because “Who are we [the government] to question a Coroner’s professional opinion?”
I’m sure Coroners will do their level best to get it right, but how many cases could go either way? When faced w/a true toss-up, it’s likely local political pressure will cause many to choose the non-COVID cause of death.
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