State Says COVID Death Toll Here is 13 Not Five

The Texas Department of State Health Services announced Monday that it changed the way the state counts coronavirus fatalities. That same day, the number of coronavirus fatalities in Fayette County jumped from five to 12.

As of Wednesday, the number of deaths reported by the State stands at 13 in Fayette County.

“From my understanding, five is the accurate number (of deaths),” said Fayette County Emergency Management Chief Craig Moreau. “Who these other ones are, I have no idea.”

Previously, DSHS counted COVID-19 fatalities as they were reported by local and regional health officials.

“We are notified of every known case in the county and we tracked those cases from the time they come in until the time they either recovered or expired,” Moreau said. “We had five that we tracked and expired.”

Moreau said there are two other cases of people who died and happened to have a coronavirus diagnosis at the time of death, but the death was due to other causes.

“Even if you include those we’re at seven,” Moreau said. “Where they get 12, I have no clue.”

Starting Monday, the agency began counting fatalities based on the cause of death listed on a person’s death certificate.

“A fatality is counted as due to COVID-19 when the medical certifier, usually a doctor with direct knowledge of the patient, determines COVID-19 directly caused the death,” the agency announced Monday.

DSHS said the new method does not include deaths of people who had COVID-19 but died of an unrelated cause.

“My best guess is that these are people who died outside of the county but had maybe a permanent address here,” Moreau said. “Maybe they were living in a nursing home somewhere else and had a family farm here or something like that, but that is just a wild guess at this point.”

Moreau said he asked DSHS headquarters on Tuesday for names of the 12 fatalities reported by the state so that the County could compare its data to the state’s. So far, he said, they have not provided that information.

The coronavirus case tracker on the Fayette County website still lists five fatalities while the State’s coronavirus dashboard at https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/coronavirus/cases.aspx reports 13. That’s not the only discrepancy between state and local data.

DSHS says there have only been 291 confirmed positive cases in Fayette County since the outbreak began, while the County reports that number at 363. DSHS says there are 131 active cases in Fayette County, with the County reporting 90 confirmed active cases and another 17 “probable” active cases. Most strikingly, the State was reporting just 28 recoveries in Fayette County as of earlier this week. The number of recoveries in Fayette County reported by the state jumped to 138 on Wednesday. Fayette County reports 241 recoveries.

“That’s why we have an incounty surveillance team tracking and keeping up with it,” Moreau said. “If the State took care of that for us, that would be great. The information from the State has not arrived fast enough to meet our needs so that our residents have the most accurate information we can get.”