MDHHS Issues Statement About COVID-19 Death Data

(April 16, 2020 3:46 PM) The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) released the following statement about today’s update of COVID-19 death statistics.

Beginning Friday, April 10, MDHHS staff has been reviewing death certificate data maintained in the state’s Vital Records reporting systems on a weekly basis. As a part of this process, records that identify COVID-19 infection as a contributing factor to death are compared against all laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Michigan Disease Surveillance System (MDSS). If a death certificate is matched to a confirmed COVID-19 case and that record in the MDSS does not indicate a death, the MDSS record is updated to indicate the death and the appropriate local health department is notified.  

These matched deaths are then included with mortality information posted to Michigan.gov/Coronavirus. On April 10, this process added 30 deaths. As a result of this week’s assessment, today’s data includes 65 additional deaths identified through this methodology. 

In addition, today’s update includes additional statistics, the inclusion of the percentage of cumulative cases and deceased cases by Arab ethnicity; case fatality rate by county; respiratory outbreaks in congregate settings by county; and Syndromic Surveillance System data of coronavirus-like symptoms from emergency departments. 

Information around this outbreak is changing rapidly. The latest information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.