Are all of Mississippi’s COVID-19 deaths being counted? No and here’s why.
The daily COVID-19 death count jumped dramatically when the Mississippi State Department of Health released numbers Friday because coroners’ cases where the virus is suspected as the cause of death are being included, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said during an afternoon news conference.
The MSDH has just started counting “suspected” COVID-19 deaths listed on death certificates. County coroners have been using a separate code on death certificates for suspected COVID-19 cases.
Death certificates are filed with the MSDH’s Vital Statistics branch. The addition caused deaths to spike at 20 on Friday from a previous daily high of 14 on April 21. Dobbs did not say why suspected cases were not previously being counted.
The MSDH lists a total of 281 COVID-19 deaths statewide and 7,212 cases as of Thursday evening.
The MSDH numbers are still inaccurate. Hancock County Coroner Jim Faulk said he has marked four home deaths as suspected COVID-19 cases. Those four cases still were not showing up in the state’s death numbers Friday, he said.
MSDH COVID deaths in Hancock County have stood at five since April 10, Health Department records show.
Faulk is only one coroner in the state’s 82 counties. Coroners have had to mark deaths as suspected COVID-19 in cases where the deceased had not been tested for the virus.
Faulk and other county coroners have been unable to get testing kits from the state Health Department to test the deceased, they said. Faulk has made multiple telephone calls in an effort to track down tests, including to the local and state health departments.
Faulk said all four deaths he counted as suspected COVID-19 cases involved symptoms associated with the disease. He has completed 3,000 death investigations since 2012 and has never had a case where someone died at home from the flu.
Communications Director Liz Sharlot told the Sun Herald on Friday that MSDH “would be happy to help” coroners who need test kits.
She said “mass requests” have to go through the county’s emergency management agency to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
Harrison County emergency management director Rupert Lacy requested tests weeks ago through MEMA.
“We went through the appropriate channels we were supposed to follow,” he said Friday afternoon. “I haven’t heard anything back from them.”
Of six cases Faulk has reported, only two from a Hancock County nursing home appear to be in the state’s death numbers, Faulk said. The nursing home had tests and those cases were confirmed before the patients died.
This story was originally published May 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
