Pa. revamps coronavirus reporting system as some counties see wide swings; in all, 822 new cases reported

State health officials reported dozens of new coronavirus deaths on Monday as they announced an overhaul in how deaths are reported to the Department of Health and then to the public.

The 87 new deaths reported bring the state’s death toll to 4,505. Additionally, 822 new covid-19 cases were reported between 12 a.m. Sunday and 12 a.m. Monday. Those cases pushed the state’s running total to 63,056 since the first positive cases were diagnosed on March 6. The state does not report on recoveries.

In Allegheny County, health officials reported 38 new cases, 14 of which are in long-term care homes. No new deaths were reported, keeping the county’s death toll at 143. The new cases mean there have been 1,641 people diagnosed with the virus since mid-March.

Some counties saw dramatic increases in the number of deaths, while others saw decreases. The changes come from the Department of Health changing the system through which it collects covid-19 death data to fall more in line with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked for, according to Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine.

The department had used the Pennsylvania National Electronic Disease Surveillance System, which is the system generally used to track outbreaks of infectious diseases. It relied on taking information provided by hospital and health care providers about deaths and matching it up with a list of those who have tested positive for the virus.

Death data now will be collected and reported via the state’s Electronic Death Registration System (EDRS). Levine said that system allows the information to fall more in line with CDC reporting guidelines — mainly that deaths be attributed to the county in which the resident legally resided.

That county, she said, is not always the same as the county in which they died, especially when it comes to patients in long-term care facilities.

She said using the EDRS will allow for “as near to real-time information about those who have died” as the department can get.

The changes likely explain the six new deaths reported in Westmoreland County, which now totals 38 deaths as opposed to the 32 that have been attributed to the county since May 7.

In an effort to be transparent about what is happening in care facilities, Levine said, the department will begin releasing a second data set that shows the numbers for each facility. Because the county where a facility is located can differ from where the deceased lived, the county totals and care facility totals in those counties will not necessarily match up.

Each death will be counted once in the state’s overall death count but will appear in two separate data sets.

New insights

The department also has begun releasing a weekly report with more data about the demographics of those who have died. The first was released Sunday, and it includes information on sex, race and comorbidities — or chronic diseases — among other demographics.

It is the first look the public has gotten at what types of underlying conditions those who have died were facing. Levine stressed that if someone had two underlying conditions — for example, heart disease and hypertension — that person will count in both demographic categories.

Hypertension has been the most common underlying condition, with 974 of those who died having been afflicted. The second-highest was dementia, with 965 categorized as suffering from the neurological disease. Nearly 70% of those who have died have been 75 or older.

Only one resident under age 20 has died from covid-19, and three have been between 20 and 24. A total of eight have been under 30, and 20 have been under 40. Sixty-six have been in their 40s.

Compiling all of the death data through the EDRS also allowed for a fuller picture of who has died in terms of race. African Americans have accounted for 20.1% of the state’s deaths from covid-19. Pennsylvania’s population is about 12% African-American.

White Pennsylvanians have made up 72.6% of the deaths, and 2.6% of those killed by the virus have been Asian. About 4.6% have fallen into an “other” category or been of two or more races.

About 5.4% of the dead have been Hispanic.

Across the state, 277,553 people have tested negative for the virus.

Cases continue to crop up in long-term care facilities that previously had not reported any. On Monday, 561 facilities statewide were reporting at least one positive patient. That’s 11 more than were reporting positive patients Friday.

Long-term care facilities, which include nursing homes, personal care homes and assisted living facilities, were to start reporting facility-level data to the Department of Health on Sunday. They will use the same reporting platform as hospitals, and the data will include the number of tests performed, positive cases and deaths.

It’s not clear when that data will be made public. Levine indicated last week that such information could be released Monday, though a Department of Health spokesman said the information was not something that could be turned around in one day.

Across the 561 care homes, there have been 13,626 cases of the virus and 3,086 deaths. Another 2,111 employees have contracted the virus.