The Colorado Department of Health released new figures on Friday changing how they categorized COVID-19 deaths. These changes have come as the Department of Health begins sorting through cases of coronavirus deaths to determine whether the cause of death was from coronavirus or whether there was an alternative death in a person who happened to be positive for coronavirus. So far, there have been about 300 fewer deaths than previously thought.

The discrepancy has to do with how the Department of Health categorizes deaths when it reports them federally. Additionally, the state “emphasized that it does not unilaterally change information on death certificates and does not question or try to change a physician’s diagnosis or causes-of-death determination.”

Gov. Polis’s office addressed the confusion as well, saying,

“The Governor applauds efforts to ensure that we are as transparent as possible with our reporting and therefore fully supports efforts by CDPHE to specify how many deaths are specifically due to COVID-19 and not just specific to CDC guidelines that include people who died with Coronavirus but not necessarily from it. What we are seeing today is a reflection of that. It’s important to note that number of deaths due to COVID-19 includes data through May 9 and does not reflect cases since then. State epidemiologists believe that once the data is up to date then the number will, unfortunately, be higher.”

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