Three nursing home deaths have been reclassified as coronavirus deaths in Colorado despite doctors at the facility previously ruling them as not related to the virus.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reclassified the deaths of three people living at the Someren Glen nursing home.
“We were informed of their (CDPHE) intention to override some of our physician’s rulings and reclassify some resident passings we have experienced in the last few weeks,” said Tim Rogers, executive director at the facility.
An additional four other residents have also died at the facility, but the physicians ruled their deaths were directly related to the virus.
“We have never seen a situation where the health department overrules a physician’s findings. However, these are unprecedented times, and the health department official did not share their motivation for changing physician’s orders,” he said.
The Department of Public Health and Environment said it follows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when coding patients’ deaths. The department said the seven residents who recently died at the facility tested positive for COVID-19, but it’s unclear if they were tested before or after their deaths.
“The department follows the CDC’s case definition of COVID-19 cases and deaths … When a person with a lab-confirmed case of COVID-19 dies, their death is automatically counted as a COVID-19 death unless there is another cause that completely rules out COVID-19, such as a fatal physical injury. A preexisting illness would not rule out COVID-19,” a department spokesman said.
A coroner in the area shut down the idea that coronavirus deaths are being inflated.
“I personally don’t think there’s a big conspiracy to overinflate the numbers,” Dr. Kelly Lear said.
The news comes as local governments grapple with how to code deaths with the influx of coronavirus patients.
“I think, in this country, we’ve taken a very liberal approach to mortality. And I think the reporting here has been pretty straightforward over the last five to six weeks,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said this month.
“If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death,” Birx said.
The discrepancy between “confirmed” and “probable” deaths has also been an issue, for example, in Pennsylvania.
Officials there were forced to remove 200 names from the state’s coronavirus death tracker after coroners reported their numbers did not match what the state’s department of health reported.
“There’s a discrepancy in the numbers,” Charles Kiessling Jr., president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I’m not saying there’s something going on … I’m not a conspiracy theory guy. But accuracy is important.”
