COVID deaths trend downward, delay in death records still causes confusion

In the past weeks, it's been mostly good news when it comes to COVID-19 -- lower case counts, fewer people hospitalized, less tests coming back positive.

But with the stats reported daily, one curve has been going down less sharply than others: deaths in North Carolina.

​When we look at who is dying most often from COVID, the figures have not changed much. Around four out of every ten people dying are in a long term care facility and 83 percent are people 65 and older.

We know this from information the state Department of Health and Human Services releases each day regarding death, case, and vaccination demographics. But it doesn’t mean that that many people died that day or even that their death record was certified. There’s a lag in reporting.

State health officials told us deaths are reported by hospitals and clinicians directly to the local and state health departments. Once reported, the information is manually entered into a database which tracks the death by date. 

While state health officials said death certificates are not used to update that information, county health staff members told WRAL otherwise. There isn't a uniform system for reporting information yet. The state is piloting a program in eight counties - Wake, Durham and Johnston - and expected the electronic reporting process to be fully implemented by June.

County health officials cited delays due to the certificates being sent via snailmail. We went back through more than 150 death certificates in Wake County and noted the difference in time and date of death versus when it was certified. On average, it took 12 days. In ten percent of the cases, it took longer than a month.

The county officials told WRAL they have a week to certify a death record from the moment it arrives.

North Carolina Coronavirus dashboard - Maps, charts and data

The lag in this reporting creates some discrepancies in the COVID-19 data released. Since last March, WRAL's data trackers have been following deaths reported each day. Looking at that number right now, one would think the average number of deaths recently is 53. In actuality, it is 14 deaths a day.

Let’s pick a random day to explain this… We’ll look at February 18. There were 96 new deaths reported on that day. But, according to the death records received and reviewed, only 10 people actually lost their lives due to the coronavirus on the 18th.

"As new deaths are reported, they are included in the date the person died, and so previous dates can change," according to the DHHS website.

Deaths include people who have tested postive for COVID through molecular and antigen tests.