OSWEGO COUNTY – Oswego County Public Health Director Jiancheng Huang addressed the recent discrepancies in the numbers of COVID-19-related deaths reported by the County and New York State Health Departments.

“The differences between the County and State dashboards are likely due to the information sources each entity relies on,” said Huang. “The hospitals, nursing homes, and adult care facilities diligently report deaths directly to the New York State Department of Health. In the past, the County Health Department's death reporting was based on death certificates and medical examiners' reports, which pronounce the official cause of death.

“Waiting for coroner’s reports and death certificates simply takes too long and has created inconsistencies between our numbers and those reported on the State’s dashboard,” he said. “Therefore, we need to make some changes to our reporting process.”

Beginning today, Tuesday, Dec. 15, Oswego County will follow the NYSDOH dashboard in reporting the number of COVID-19-related deaths by ‘County of Residence.’ To date, the Oswego County Health Department has verified and reported six deaths. As of 3 p.m. today, the State’s dashboard reported 19 deaths of County residents since the pandemic began.

“We are still waiting to verify a number of coroner’s reports and death certificates, so the number of deaths in today’s report are a considerable jump from yesterday,” said Huang. “It's important for people to remember that these 13 new deaths we’re adding today did not happen overnight. They occurred over several weeks.”

Addressing the deaths of Oswego County residents, Huang said that every death is a loss to the community. “We never want to lose our neighbors,” he said. “I would like to express our condolences to the families and friends of these patients. Out of respect for the families’ privacy, it is our department’s policy to release no additional information about the patients.”