West Virginia's COVID-19 death count 'as accurate as can be,' DHHR chief says

“As with any dataset, there’s going to be changes to the data as you move forward,” Crouch said. “So that’s why we began the reconciliation process — to make sure that we were looking at those death certificates that came in subsequent to the death report information we were getting.”

At the onset of the pandemic in spring 2020, deaths in the state were manually reported to the DHHR. As of Jan. 1 of this year, the state has transitioned to an electronic reporting system, Crouch said.

“It has worked very well,” he said. “We still have a few bugs, with some folks having difficulty transitioning. As with any death report, you have to have a signature of a physician or an appropriate person in terms of making sure that death is certified. And sometimes we still have to wait on that a little bit before the electronic piece comes through, but it has speeded up the process significantly.”

Prior to implementing the electronic reporting, it could take up to 30 days after a person died for the DHHR to receive the report confirming the death, Crouch said.

“Now we’re doing that in a couple of days,” he said. “It has helped; it is very accurate. We have reconciled these numbers to make sure they are as accurate as they can be.”

James Hoyer, who heads the Joint Interagency Task Force for COVID-19 Vaccines, said the reconciliation process is ongoing, and more changes to the official death toll can be expected.

“West Virginia is doing a pretty good job of staying fairly accurate,” he said. “But there will be continued changes that we will have to make over time.”

Justice read the age, gender and home county of 11 additional West Virginians who died due to COVID-19 at the start of the briefing, noting that nine of the deaths reported were identified due to the reconciliation process.

As of Friday morning, there had been 6,893 deaths in West Virginia attributed to COVID-19, according to the DHHR.

“Vaccination is key to preventing serious illness from COVID-19,” Crouch said.

The DHHR reported 491 new COVID-19 identified in the state between Thursday and Friday, raising the total number of active COVID-19 cases in the state to 1,658.

There were 119 patients hospitalized statewide due to the virus, including 25 patients in ICU units and 11 patients on ventilators. There were also four pediatric patients hospitalized due to COVID-19.

West Virginians ages 5 years and older are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination; after the primary series, first booster shots are recommended for those 12 and older.

Second booster shots for those age 50 and over that are 4 months or greater from their first booster have been authorized by FDA and recommended by CDC, as well as for younger individuals over 12 years old with serious and chronic health conditions that lead to being considered moderately to severely immunocompromised.

To learn more about COVID-19 vaccines, or to find a vaccine, visit vaccinate.wv.gov or call 1-833-734-0965.