The error comes from the state’s process of verifying reported deaths with death certificate information, a health department spokesperson told the publication, and was discovered during a routine employee training.
State epidemiologists are required to check the data between the two datasets and correct dates or remove deaths that weren’t due to COVID-19 from the disease reporting system.
“Reconciling deaths between the case surveillance system and vital statistics system requires manual review and entry of data, which did not happen as expected during the height of the surge,” the department spokesperson said.
The correction will result in a few days of higher-than-average death totals, and the actual date of death will be reflected on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, according to the report.
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