The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says its recent change moving up the timeline of the first coronavirus death in Kansas reflects an adjustment made at the county level, not the state.
KDHE spokesman Matthew Lara says the Leavenworth County medical certifier amended a death certificate to reflect a COVID death on Jan. 9, 2020, over two months ahead of the previously recorded initial death — and likely did so without the benefit of a COVID test. Lara says the change, made months after the death, was made because the victim’s symptoms were similar to other COVID-related death symptoms.
Lara says KDHE does not make any determinations on cause of death or contributing factors and the agency does not have information to make those statements. However, he says the Leavenworth County case goes beyond outlier status. To Lara, “it conflicts with all of the data we have on COVID cases in Kansas and the region at the time of the individual’s death.”
Lara directed additional questions to the Leavenworth County Health Department or the Centers for Disease Control.
9 am Wednesday: KDHE changes first virus death timeline
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has altered the timetable of COVID’s arrival in the state.
Initially, KDHE listed the first COVID-19 death on March 11, 2020. Now it lists the initial death on Jan. 9, 2020, making it tentatively the first coronavirus death in the country. Right now, the National Center for Health Statistics has a COVID death on Jan. 11, 2020, as its earliest death due to the virus. Until recently, the first death was assumed to have taken place Feb. 6, 2020, in California.
Almost 5,500 people have died from coronavirus over the past 20 months.
