CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – On Tuesday night, more than 536,000 people in the United States died from COVID-19, including more than 5,600 Iowa.
Several experts told our KCRG-TV9 i9 investigation unit that these figures are likely to be higher than reported.
This is because many Iowans die of COVID-19-like symptoms and these cases are not necessarily further investigated. The death certificates we found i9 show that Iowans died of respiratory diseases due to a root cause of pneumonia. County staff members also told us about a similar trend.
Dr. James Gill, who is the chief coroner in Connecticut, said these are cases that need further investigation because there is probably another condition that causes pneumonia.
“Pneumonia itself really raises some questions,” Gill said. “Well, ‘why did that person get pneumonia’ and that’s the question you have to ask.”
Gill said deaths from pneumonia could be caused by a large number of underlying conditions, including dementia, homicide or even COVID-19.
“I mean, I’ve had deaths where someone was certified as pneumonia and you look at it and you know, well, they had pneumonia because they’re quadriplegic because they suffered a gunshot two years ago,” Gill said. . “So the gunshot wound is actually the leading cause of death, and if you don’t look for that underlying cause of death, you’ll lose such deaths.”
Gill also said that at the beginning of the pandemic, Connecticut saw a lot of death certificates with certified pneumonia as the initial cause, then it was later reclassified as COVID-19 deaths.
“I went to the funeral home and swabbed the body at the funeral home to see if they were infected with COVID,” Gill said. “And we found dozens of people who are positive with COVID-19 and over who are certified as deaths by COVID-19. Even if the original death certificate does not state COVID-19 as the cause of death. ”
In Iowa, examiners do not investigate every death. State law only requires the investigation of deaths of public interest, such as homicides or contagious diseases. This would not include pneumonia or respiratory conditions. Gill said the law handcuffs medical examiners, in a way, because they often have to rely on doctors and clerks to report their cases.
Then there are the COVID-19 deaths that not even medical examiners knew how to investigate.
Dr. Donald Linder, a forensic scientist in Linn County, said that sometimes when people died of COVID-19, these cases were not initially reported to his office.
“Well, in the first few months of the pandemic, I found out first, second, or third hand that person had COVID,” Linder said. “He admits you should have told us.”
Linder said that the lack of tests probably means that the number of reported deaths due to COVID-19 is lower than the actual number of deaths in the state.
“There is no doubt that the deaths were under-reported or escaped through the cracks,” Linder said.
Data from the Iowa Department of Public Health shows that deaths increased in 2020 and 2021.
The state has had problems reporting COVID-19 deaths in the past. In November, i9 learned that the Iowa data portal for COVID-19 reported the number of deaths in some counties in the state. At the time, the Appanoose County Health Department reported 27 deaths in the county, but the state data portal reported only 9 deaths.
A similar discrepancy occurred in Linn County. The public health department in Linn County has reported 183 deaths since Wednesday. The state data portal reported 162 deaths.
The discrepancy arose because the state required a positive PCR test at that time and meant that those who died of the virus and did not have a positive PCR test are not considered to be dead. This was changed in December and allows medical professionals to determine if a death was related to the virus.
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