FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 12, 2022
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services recently transitioned to an electronic death reporting system. With that change, previously unrecorded COVID-19 deaths were identified and last week NCDHHS updated the COVID death dashboard to reflect those numbers.
From the NCDHHS press release:
“With the ability to access death certificate data electronically, NCDHHS identified 1,146 additional deaths that occurred between Jan. 1, 2022 and March 31, 2022, with COVID-19 noted as the cause on the death certificate and with a positive COVID-19 test. These deaths will be added to North Carolina’s COVID-19 dashboard Wednesday, pushing the total deaths for the pandemic to more than 24,000. Data continue to show North Carolina has the lowest per capita rates of COVID-19 deaths in the Southeast and ranks among the lowest in the nation.
Until now, deaths on North Carolina’s COVID-19 dashboard have been reported through physicians or hospitals and through case investigation by local health departments. The North Carolina Database Application for Vital Events began accepting death certificate data electronically on Jan. 1, and it is now available sooner and will be linked with data in the COVID-19 reporting system every month. Prior to NCDAVE, North Carolina was one of the last two states that still relied on paper death certificates. The paper certificates were filed manually, weren’t available for months and therefore couldn’t be linked with the COVID-19 reporting system.”
As a result of this update, Haywood County has added 16 additional deaths to its total COVID death numbers for the pandemic to reflect the newly corrected numbers issued by the state. The Haywood County COVID dashboard has also been updated with these changes.
