“We don't have the infrastructure to go and check everybody for COVID,” Talamo said. His office handles a lot of deaths at home, and most are pronounced dead over the phone. He’s the only full-time employee in the coroner’s office in Lafayette Parish, one of the largest in the state. If so, he includes COVID-19 on the death certificate. Talamo, a full-time, trained death investigator, said he checks with a state registry to see whether people who died had a positive coronavirus test. Stay connected: Subscribe to Coronavirus Watch, your daily update on all things COVID-19 in the USAĬoronavirus Facebook group: Come together and share the latest information about coronavirus, coping with lifestyle changes and more

Deaths attributed to natural causes jumped by 260. In 2020, deaths from accidents, homicides, suicides and drug overdoses exceeded the prior year by 45. The CDC data, collected from his own office and data he provided the Documenting COVID-19 project, undercuts that. Talamo, Lafayette Parish’s chief medicolegal investigator, said he doesn’t think COVID-19 deaths go uncounted, instead blaming suicides or drug overdoses. Those deaths, especially those that weren’t properly investigated, make up at least some of Lafayette’s missing COVID-19 deaths, according to experts.Įspecially concerning are deaths in the community attributed to nonspecific causes, known as “garbage codes.” For example, 40 people in the parish who died at home since 2020 were certified as dead of “heart failure, unspecified.” Deaths at home from hypertensive heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s all increased 30% or more in 2020. The gap between these two numbers means hundreds more people probably died of COVID-19, researchers said.ĭeaths attributed to diseases that are often tied to COVID-19 increased. In Lafayette Parish, COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause of death in 134 fatalities in 2020, even though there were 419 “excess deaths” – the number of deaths that exceed a normal, pre-pandemic year. But they can be as unreliable as they are essential. A death certificate is the last legal document someone leaves behind, and one of the most important. When people die, their death and its causes must be certified and registered according to state laws. 'It's hampered our ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and leaves us unprepared for future public health emergencies.' The essential, yet unreliable death certificate 'Our death investigation system urgently needs both oversight and standardization of training and procedures,' Stokes said. In 2021, he hasn’t pronounced a single person dead from COVID-19 in the 80,000-person county. He requires families to provide proof of a positive coronavirus test before including it on a death certificate. In Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, coroner Wavis Jordan said his office “doesn’t do COVID deaths.” Jordan does not investigate deaths himself. The Rankin County coroner said he wrestles with family members who argue against citing COVID-19 on death certificates, then reverse course when they learn that the federal government pays for burials of people who die from the coronavirus. In and around Jackson, Mississippi, deaths from heart attacks at home doubled in 2020 and are on pace to hit a similar level in 2021. In a departure from widely accepted death investigation practices, Talamo said he typically writes down “what the families tell us” and doesn’t push further.

He said his office lacks the resources to test every death for COVID-19. Lafayette Parish’s chief death investigator, Keith Talamo, acknowledged that most people who die at home are pronounced dead over the phone.

Oklahoma coronavirus stats