The San Mateo County Department of Public Health is attempting to align its COVID-19 death total with that of California’s health department after the 186 deaths reported on Sunday were found to be the result of a reporting error.
Alameda County on Friday put the death total at 1,223, significantly lower than the previous report of 1,634. Health officials explained that the drop resulted from aligning the county’s definition of a COVID-19 death with the state’s definition.
On Sunday, however, San Mateo County officials were caught off guard when KCBS Radio informed them that the state Department of Public Health had increased the local death toll by 186, noting that the additional deaths were from prior months that were not previously reported.
San Mateo County Health Chief Louise Rogers told KCBS Radio the state number appears to be an error, but the error was made at the county level.
“I think the error was on our end and we have an internal process for reviewing the information, which is uploaded into their system,” Rogers said.
She added that the reporting error will be fixed and the county’s weekly reported numbers are indeed accurate on its public facing website, sanmateocounty.org.
San Mateo County reports 579 total COVID-19 deaths.
