Maryland on Thursday announced that it is adding 517 previously uncounted covid-19 deaths to its official tally, bringing its total toll above 9,500.
Officials said they are also reclassifying 21 cases to list covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as a probable cause of death. This accounting change caused a sudden spike in the state’s daily fatality numbers, which have averaged between nine and 12 in recent weeks.
The Maryland Department of Health said these deaths were inaccurately classified by medical certifiers over the past year. The errors were caught during “maintenance exercises” by the department’s statistics administrators.
“When necessary, our epidemiologists make adjustments to reported health data as information is reviewed, verified, and corrected,” Jinlene Chan, Maryland’s deputy secretary for public health services, said in a statement. “It is important for medical certifiers to closely follow [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance when reporting COVID-19 deaths.”
Similar accounting errors have happened before in the region. In February and March, a computer glitch caused Virginia to add hundreds of previously unreported coronavirus deaths to their public tallies.
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