Washington's Coronavirus Death Toll May Be Much Higher
SEATTLE, WA— Washington's real coronavirus death toll may be higher than numbers currently reflected in the state's data, officials said Thursday.
In a teleconference with news reporters, two of the Department of Health's top health experts discussed the challenges in identifying some cases and the possibility that Washington could be undercounting the virus's true death toll.
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Dr. Katie Hutchinson, the state's health statistics manager, said approximately 3,000 death certificates filed since the beginning of the year include symptoms that could represent an unidentified case of COVID-19, including acute respiratory illnesses and pneumonia.
Many of the uncounted deaths may be linked to other illnesses, including influenza, and sorting out the subtle differences takes a considerable effort — especially in those recorded before the coronavirus's spread was widely known.
Health officials are working to re-examine each death to see if there is a definitive link to COVID-19, which can be more difficult to accomplish posthumously. Hutchinson said that, in many cases, it is likely the answer may never be known.
"It's going to be extremely hard to figure out if any of these were COVID-related," Hutchinson said. "So we're trying to work on that."
Developing a more accurate understanding of the virus's impact on lives helps public health agencies understand which groups and areas are most at risk moving forward.
Hutchinson said another 100 death certificates mentioned COVID-19 but lack lab confirmation for the disease. Those cases are not currently reported on the state's dashboard.
Between 20 and 30 deaths have been harder to definitively rule out, because the primary cause of death listed are things such as cancer or a stroke, but COVID-19 could "easily be involved or hasten the death," Hutchinson said.
Among the 1,044 deaths listed in the state's official count as of Thursday, Hutchinson said fewer than five were determined to be misclassified as COVID-19 deaths, including some deaths resulting from gunshot wounds, which will be removed from the system.
"Because we provide the data in near real time, our dashboard numbers include any death to a person who has tested postive for COVID-19," Hutchinson said.
Because of the large number of cases, and the need for quickly accessible data, the process to identify COVID-19 deaths moves at a much faster pace than normal processes, which can often take up to 18 months to finalize. As a result, there is some potential for adjustments as more information comes to light.
Hutchinson said the overall variance in the accuracy of the state's preliminary data is only about 3 percent.
[NORECIRC]
This article originally appeared on the Seattle Patch
