To elaborate on my previous post, Washington State at first reported all deaths where Covid was present as Covid-caused deaths, because there were so many deaths so fast that there wasn’t time to investigate. Remember that every place was understaffed and people were dying every day. And many of the deceased had incomplete death certificates. Then, when the state had the manpower (with the help of the WA National Guard), they went through and made corrections.
I would guess that the same thing occurred in other states, as well. Not for nefarious political reasons, simply to try to keep track of things.
From July 14, 2020, probably paywalled:
The state Department of Health (DOH) is refining how it records deaths as it works to better track the coronavirus pandemic.
So far, anytime someone with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis dies, DOH has been attributing those deaths to the virus, said Katie Hutchinson, health statistics manager for DOH.
In the vast majority of those cases, COVID-19 was the cause of the person’s death. But sometimes, people with COVID-19 happen to die of something else. Or, they have incomplete death certificates, or the state isn’t immediately sure whether COVID-19 played a role.
To differentiate among these, DOH on Monday began classifying deaths of people with COVID-19 into five categories: Confirmed, probable, pending, suspect and non-COVID-19-related.
“We have slowly been working on our process to get this more detailed and provide more information,” Hutchinson said during a press conference Tuesday.
DOH has removed deaths from the official tally when it determined COVID-19 was not the primary cause. Hutchinson said the agency plans to continue doing so.
A death is considered “confirmed” when the person has tested positive for COVID-19 and their death certificate states that the disease was the cause of death or a contributing factor. This group makes up 89% of COVID-19 deaths reported in the state as of 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
Deaths are categorized as “probable” when the death certificate identifies COVID-19 as the cause or contributor to death but there is not a known positive test for the virus. About 80 deaths in Washington fit into this category.
A death is considered “pending” when the person’s death certificate doesn’t list a cause of death or has yet to be completed. This category can include Washingtonians who died out of state. About 2% of Washington’s deaths are considered pending.
“Suspect” deaths, which currently account for 5% of the state’s official death tally, describe COVID-positive people who died of natural causes and whose death certificate doesn’t mention the virus. When this happens, DOH has to investigate and determine whether COVID-19 played a role in the person’s death.
Non-COVID-19 deaths are those where a COVID-positive person definitely died of something unrelated to the virus — for instance, suicides, overdoses, homicides or accidents. These were 4% of the deaths recorded by the state as of 11:59 p.m. Sunday.