LEWISBURG – County Coroners across the state are used to keeping track of the number of deaths in their county. However, since the COVID-19 outbreak, Union County Coroner Dominick Adamo says keeping track of people who have died because of COVID-19 has become a challenging process.
Union County had their first reported death from COVID-19 this week, announced by the Department of Health. Adamo says according to his records, he has two deaths in the county from Covid-19. He explained, “The Department of Health reports are based on resident address and that is pulled from the death certificate electronically filed with the Department of Health.”
“So, what you get is…for example, if you have a resident in Union County that was taken to Geisinger Medical Center and they pass away due to COVID-19, it’s going to show a Union County death.,” he said.
Adamo explains why they are tracking deaths in this way, “They want to look at where a potential hot spot could come up. That would allow them to respond to that area. Obviously, if you look at the zip code 17821 in Danville, you’re going to have a large amount of people passing away there, because you are having a large number of people from different areas to Geisinger Medical Center.”
Adamo says all deaths that are related to COVID-19 should be reported to the county coroners. However, the Department of Health has instructed local hospitals they are not required to do that. You can hear more from Adamo from WKOK’s Wednesday On The Mark program, online at wkok.com.
