The state of Texas will now identify COVID-19 related deaths though the cause of death listed on death certificates.
Chris Van Deusen with the Texas Department of State Health Services says death certificates have to be filed within ten days of a person's passing.
"We're able to get those more quickly rather than going through the public health process of having a local health department notified of the death and doing an investigation and then reporting that out" said Van Deusen.He says the length of time that process takes varies by jurisdiction and does not provide timely demographic data and the new reporting method will also report the deceased's race, sex and ethnicity and age.
The new process also allows the state to display fatalities by date of death.
Van Deusen says what they'll report now on their website will be the date of death as they occurred as opposed when they were reported to them,