Washington State DOH corrects inaccuracies in death count, test result data

The Washington State Department of Health is altering the way it reports COVID-19 deaths to better identify if COVID-19 caused or contributed to a particular death.

“The changes we’re making to reporting will remove non-COVID-19 deaths from the statewide total, and break down the overall data to include more specific categories,” according to a DOH release.

Washington DOH concerned over recent increase in COVID-19 cases

Previously, when a death was reported as a COVID-19 death, the person who passed away had also tested positive for COVID-19. This method, DOH says, doesn’t just reflect the deaths of people whose deaths were caused by COVID-19 since it could also include someone who died of other causes.

The change in reporting will take place in two phases — Phase 1 began Wednesday, June 17, and Phase 2 will happen in the coming weeks.

Phase 1 includes removing deaths from the count where COVID-19 did not contribute to death. This resulted in the removal of seven deaths from the current count, including two suicides, three homicides, and two overdose deaths. Four of the deaths were in King County, three in Yakima County. DOH said that additional non-COVID-19 deaths could be removed over the course of the outbreak.

Phase 2 will include an expansion of how the DOH reports deaths to identify if COVID-19 can be confirmed or ruled out as a contributing cause of death, and an add the identification of probable and suspected deaths.

“As part of Phase 2, future COVID-19 death classifications will include whether:

1. COVID-19 contributed to the death (death certificate, testing, and other case information available to confirm);
2. COVID-19 probably contributed to the death (death certificate information available but testing information not available);
3. COVID-19 is suspected to have contributed to death (follow-up being conducted prior to ruling out or confirming death); or
4. COVID-19 did not contribute to the death (examples include homicide, overdose, suicide, car accident, or disease with clear exclusion of COVID-19 illness).”

The DOH said it will continue to review its processes to ensure accurate data. Read a Q&A about these changes online here.

On Tuesday, DOH said it discovered that negative serology test results for COVID-19 antibodies were included in the reports of negative test results for COVID-19 where they should not have been.

“This resulted in an over reporting of the number of individuals who have only tested negative, by 13% since April 21st. Data have been updated to remove the antibody testing results.”

As DOH notes, there are two data issues that continue to effect results presented for testing. First, nearly 8,000 negative lab results have not yet been entered into the system. Second, about 21% of negative test results do not have an assigned county.

In regards to general testing reporting, the data presented is by number of individuals, not the number of tests. An individual is only counted one time, and are classified by their first positive test result or their first negative.

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