Methodology changes COVID death numbers
Thu, 12/17/2020 - 5:07pm
admin
—Change means most counties to add more COVID deaths to totals
NORTHEAST IOWA - As the Times Plain Dealer has reported for several weeks, the number of deaths reported on Iowa’s coronavirus.iowa.gov website has shown a discrepancy from what Howard County has been reporting.
Since at least Oct. 28, the IDPH tally has shown just nine deaths. On Dec. 9, the local Department of Health showed 18 deaths in the county.
On Dec. 7, IDPH announced a change in the way it was reporting deaths attributed to COVID-19 to better align with national and state reporting.
IDPH Interim Director Kelly Garcia stated, “As we learn more about the virus and testing expands significantly, Iowa like many states has changed its methodology.”
This means the numbers on Dec. 7 showed a total of 2,721 deaths in the state. When the new methodology takes place, some counts will go down, but most will increase, bringing the total in the state to 2,898, an increase of 177 or +6.51%.
What does it mean locally?
As stated above, when the state numbers catch up to the local ones, Howard County will go from nine deaths to 15, an increase of 66.67%, one of the highest percentages in the state. Below is a graph showing some local counties and also some of counties with a larger percentage of change.
Previous Methodology
The guidelines used since March in Iowa had to meet two requirements:
1. The case must have a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) COVID-19 test recorded in IDPH’s Iowa Disease Surveillance System (IDSS).
2. The case must be reported to IDPH as deceased, through either case investigation or the death record.
This methodology does not include cases where a death is reported and can be matched with a positive antigen test result, nor does it include cases where COVID-19 is listed as a cause of death in the death record but there is not a positive PCR test result on file with the department.
New Methodology
The new methodology is based on the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) cause-of-death coding. Under this new methodology, a case must be coded by NCHS with the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) code U07.1 as the underlying cause of death or a contributing factor to death. Coding is based on the registered death record completed by the health care provider.
This methodology does not require a positive PCR or antigen test result. Deaths will be counted as a COVID-19 death if NCHS codes the death record with code U07.1 as the underlying cause of or contributing factor to death. This methodology does ensure the number of COVID-19 deaths reported will match the official state vital statistics report, when eventually published, and will provide greater consistency between the number of deaths reported by federal, state and county government agencies.
Differences
The new methodology will be applied retroactively to deaths reported to the state since March and will result in an increase in the number of Iowans whose deaths are attributed to COVID-19. The changes in data are demonstrated above. Additionally, NCHS ICD-10 coding can take approximately seven days to complete and return to the state, which will increase the time between when a death is reported to the state and the date it will be published on the website.
