Colorado’s state health dept. revises method of counting COVID-19 deaths; 878 deaths as of Friday

DENVER -- Colorado's fatalities related to COVID-19 will now be counted as two separate data points, said the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in a release Friday.

Up to this point, anyone who died while testing positive for COVID-19 was counted as a coronavirus-related death.

Now, state health officials will distinguish between people who died directly because of the virus and people who had COVID-19 at their time of death but died of other causes that may not be attributable to the virus.

The two categories are now reflected on the state's coronavirus data dashboard. Going forward, the state will report "Deaths Due to COVID-19" and "Deaths Among COVID-19" as separate data points.

The number of deaths due to COVID-19 reported by the CDC in Colorado is 878 as of May 9.

The number of deaths among COVID-19 reported by the state is 1,150 as of Friday.

State health officials also emphasized that these new data points will not change the information on death certificates or attempt to question a cause-of-death determination.