HYANNIS – The Massachusetts Department of Public Health recently announced that it is updating the criteria for identifying COVID-19 deaths to meet guidance from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) in an effort to better assess the acute impact of COVID-19 on the state.
Previously, definitions of death from Covid included anyone who had COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate and those who had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but did not have COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate.
Beginning yesterday, March 14, the new definition has reduced the timeframe from 60 days to 30 days for those without a COVID-19 diagnosis on their death certificate.
Massachusetts is one of several states adopting the new guidelines crafted by the CSTE in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in order to implement a standardized approach nationwide for counting COVID-19 deaths.
“We are adopting the new definition because we support the need to standardize the way COVID-19-associated deaths are counted,” said DPH State Epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Brown. “Prior to the CSTE definition, states did not have a nationally recognized definition for COVID-19 deaths and, as such, have been using a variety of processes and definitions to count their deaths.”
“In Massachusetts, our definition has consistently been broader than most other states,” she said. “After a deep dive into our data and reviewing thousands of death certificates we recognize that this updated definition gives us a truer picture of mortality associated with COVID-19.”
The state has retroactively applied this new definition going back to the start of the pandemic in March of 2020. 4,081 deaths in Massachusetts previously associated with COVID have been removed, while 400 previously uncounted deaths were manually identified as being COVID related and have been added to the death count for a net decline of 3,700.
All calculations involving COVID related deaths will be updated and posted for public review.
By, Matthew Tomlinson, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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