Since the coronavirus pandemic began in March, a significant percentage of Americans have felt the death toll numbers have been artificially or deliberately inflated.
A case in point was a poll from Axios/Ipsos late last month that had 31 percent of Americans believing the numbers had been fudged.
Lyon County Public Health Emergency Preparedness Director Jennifer Millbern says Kansas goes out of its way to make sure the death toll related to COVID-19 is accurate. She also says there will be delays in announcements as deaths are investigated.
Millbern says the Kansas process for determining cause of death — COVID or otherwise — is straightforward. A certifying physician or coroner makes the call on whether a death is related to coronavirus or not, and Millbern says COVID-19 has to be the direct cause of death for a fatality to be listed as a COVID death. The death certificate is then sent to the Bureau of Vital Statistics and reviewed by the Department of Health and Environment. Millbern says it’s entirely possible for a coronavirus patient to die of other causes than COVID-19.
Lyon County enters the week with 14 confirmed coronavirus deaths. As of Friday, Lyon County’s pending death certificate amount was five. Seven of the county’s deaths and all five of the pending death certificates came from long-term care clusters.
