Delayed reporting from state adds 35 Madison Co. COVID-19 deaths
A total of 35 people were added to the Madison County COVID-19 death records on Thursday, but none of those people added died this month.
The Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department clarified the addition with a press release and virtual press conference Thursday afternoon with Director Kim Tedford.
“On Dec. 22, the Tennessee Department of Health released information about COVID-19 data regarding deaths and they were reconciling at year end,” Tedford said. “They did this so reporting would be correct.”
Apparently death reporting had a backlog because of a number of factors as doctors signed death certificates indicating COVID-19 as a contributing factor in their deaths, and this triggered an investigation into each death because national public health guidelines dictate any death that’s connected to a pandemic must be investigated. Positive case and death surges, worker shortages and high numbers of deaths statewide caused there to be a backlog in those investigations.
Other factors like the circumstances of specific people’s deaths – like if they’d passed away in their homes and were found later – caused delays in reporting of their own.
But at the end of 2021, the state wanted to make sure they had all the COVID-19 deaths sorted out and reported efficiently and sent a list of deaths they hadn’t previously reported to each county that they were putting into their system for each county.
They originally sent Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department a list of 45 people who’d been listed with COVID-19 as a cause of death but had not been reported, and according to Tedford, these deaths ranged from November of 2020 until last month.
Department officials researched each person to verify they were Madison County residents and not someone who died in Madison County but were from elsewhere, and that number decreased to 35 people – ranging in age from 48-93 years, 16 females, 19 males, 25 Caucasian, eight African-Americans, one multiracial and one unknown (where an ethnicity wasn’t checked on the death certificate).
Tedford said there aren’t any other delayed additions to be expected since the state cleaned up its own reporting.
“We get reports on a monthly basis letting us know how many deaths we had with any specific disease, but when there’s a pandemic going on, those updates come more frequently,” Tedford said. “And when those updates are coming in real time this quickly, it’s more difficult to avoid the backlog we had as a state.”
Reach Brandon Shields at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at 731-425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at editorbrandon.
This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Delayed reporting from state adds 35 Madison Co. COVID-19 deaths
