Knox County Health Department officials announced 39 additional COVID-19 deaths among county residents on Wednesday for the current reporting period of January 16 through January 22.
But Knox County Health Department officials also said 10 of those deaths occurred not this month but in previous months. They said they will add those deaths to their charts according to their dates of death.
Officials with the Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH) recently announced they were working through a backlog of deaths throughout the state.
Knox County Health Department spokeswoman Kelsey Wilson addressed the findings with The Tennessee Star on Wednesday.
“We were able to look into them [the backlog of deaths] and confirm that they actually were Knox County residents and we have added them to our totals,” Wilson said.
“We have been doing that over the past couple of weeks as we have been notified of additional deaths. Some of those happened in early 2021, more so in September and October, more of the height of the Delta wave. As we are notified and as we can look into them then we add them to our count.”
TDOH officials last month attributed the lag in death reporting data to many factors, including the manual process most providers and facilities undertake, the increase in at-home deaths, and the strain on the public health infrastructure during case surges. On average, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said approximately 75 percent of mortality data is complete by eight weeks, given the time it takes to determine the cause of death in some cases.
TDOH Commissioner Lisa Piercey said at the time that COVID-19 death certificate processing is complex.
This week, the Williamson County-based Tennessee Stands published an online column on its website that called on Governor Bill Lee and the TDOH to enforce an already-existing state law enacted late last year regarding COVID-19.
Gary Humble, of Tennessee Stands, referenced House Bill 9077 and its equivalent Senate Bill 9014.
Humble cited one portion of that bill that says “a private business, governmental entity, school, or local education agency shall not compel or otherwise take an adverse action against a person to compel the person to provide proof of vaccination if the person objects to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine for any reason.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star and The Georgia Star News. Follow Chris on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Knox County Health Department Building” by Knox County Health Department.
