Erie County's official COVID-19 death count is reduced. Learn the reason why

Erie County's latest COVID-19 Case & Death Report included a surprise: The county's number of COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic dropped by 67, from 931 to 864.

It's not that Erie County Department of Health officials believe those 67 people died from non-COVID causes, but the source of COVID-19 data they use has changed.

County health officials have been counting COVID-19 deaths from both the Electronic Death Registry System and Pennsylvania's National Electronic Disease Surveillance System. The State Health Department has only counted deaths from the death registry, which is why its total for Erie County has always differed from the County Health Department's total.

EDRS is used by funeral home directors, coroners and medical examiners, while the surveillance system is used by hospitals, long-term care facilities, laboratories and public health organizations.

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Now the County Health Department will only count deaths from registry system, said Lauren Carson, an epidemiology research associate with the County Health Department.

"The state used to send data from both EDRS and PA-NEDSS, even though they didn't officially count the NEDSS deaths," Carson said. "But the files have grown too large over the past three years and the state had problems downloading them each night. So they streamlined it."

A majority of the deaths removed from the official total occurred during the county's initial surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in late 2020 and early 2021.

For example, the county's highest monthly number of COVID-19 deaths occurred in December 2020, as the virus spread among local nursing homes. The total for that month declined with the latest update from 207 deaths to 176.

"That doesn't mean those other people didn't die with COVID," Carson said. "It means their name wasn't entered into the EDRS."

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The State Health Department's decision to only include COVID-19 deaths reported on the registry system also changed other county data:

• The COVID-19 fatality rate declined from 1.3% to 1.1%.
• The percentage COVID-19 deaths who were long-term-care facility residents dropped from 43.6% to 40.1%.
• The percentage of COVID-19 deaths among county residents 80 and older declined from 48.7% to 48.1%, while the percentage among those 60 to 69 rose from 15.5% to 16%.
• The percentage of deaths among those unvaccinated or partially vaccinated dropped from 70.9% to 66.6%.
• The percentage of deaths among those fully vaccinated without a booster increased from 18% to 20.4%, while the percentage among those fully vaccinated with a booster rose from 7.8% to 9.7%.

Even though the County Health Department now tallies COVID-19 deaths only from EDRS, its total reported last week still didn't match the state's total for Erie County: 864 vs. 912.

"That's because the county is only counting COVID-19 deaths in EDRS that have a positive lab result for COVID," Carson said. "The state is counting any death in EDRS that lists COVID-19 as a cause."

The County Health Department plans to re-evaluate how it counts COVID-19 deaths, Carson said.

Erie County reports lowest COVID-19 case totals in nearly two years

The county's number of reported COVID-19 cases has declined to its lowest level since early summer 2021.

Only 43 new cases were reported May 8-14, a decline from 47 cases reported the previous week, according to the County Health Department. It follows a total of 309 cases reported in April, the fewest in a month since July 2021 (188 cases).

The early summer 2021 decline was followed by a surge caused by the delta and omicron variants that led to thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths among county residents.

County health officials are hopeful that a similar pattern doesn't happen again.

"I think it's less likely because nearly everybody has either been vaccinated, been infected or both, so they have some protection," said Dr. Howard Nadworny, a Saint Vincent Hospital infectious diseases specialist and County Health Department adviser. "We also have seen the XBB variants over the past two months, which are still part of the omicron family that isn't causing severe infections."

The fear Nadworny and other health officials have is that COVID-19 undergoes another significant mutation and causes more serious illness like the delta variant did in late 2021. And with the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ending May 11, tracking future outbreaks will be more difficult as there won't be as much surveillance and testing being done.

"We know COVID-19 has a history of mutations and I'm surprised that while numbers are down, we're not to zero," Nadworny said. "The virus is still spreading even though it's not causing much severe illness or death."

A 14-day moving average of around eight county residents a day are hospitalized with COVID-19 and there have been two COVID-19 deaths reported since April 1, according to the County Health Department.

The amount of coronavirus found in Erie's wastewater treatment plans has declined in recent weeks to its lowest level in more than a year.

"It shows people are still getting infected but no real surges in cases," Nadworny said. "And since most people are either not testing or doing at-home testing, we really don't know how many cases there are out there."

Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNBruce.