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The state Department of Health has reported that two COVID-19 deaths occurred this week in Lycoming County, but that was news to county Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr.
"As far as I'm concerned, we have had no COVID-19 deaths in the county," Kiessling said late Tuesday afternoon.
"I don't know where they (the health department) are getting their information. You will have to ask them. They have not reported anything to me," he said.
Kiessling, who is head of the Pennsylvania State Coroners Association, said he and many coroners throughout the commonwealth put little faith in the actual numbers the health department gives out daily on the number of COVID-19 death cases.
"This has been a major frustration of mine from the start of this pandemic," Kiessling said, adding that in many cases, the coroners are not involved in the reporting process at all.
It is a problem he hears almost daily from other coroners.
There are discrepancies throughout the commonwealth -- some small, others large -- in what the health department is reporting and what some coroners are actually seeing in their counties.
The health department is classifying COVID-19 deaths not on where the person died, but on where they lived, Kiessling and Shanaman said.
Such a reporting system is flawed, the two said.
In Lancaster County, for example, the health department reported as of Tuesday night 88 coronavirus deaths while the coroner has actually handled 101 COVID-19 deaths, according to Susan Shanaman, solicitor for the state coroners association.
"The health department's way of reporting (these deaths) is not following the law, the coroner's law, that has been in existence since 1933," Shanaman said.
The law states in part that a county coroner -- or medical examiner -- has jurisdiction in many cases in listing the cause of death of those who die in their county, she explained.
The coroner must be alerted in a number of instances, including -- but not limited to -- homicides, accidents, traumatic injuries, suspicious deaths and "any death known or suspected to be due to a contagious disease and constituting a public hazard," according to state law.
"These types of deaths must be reported to the coroners, but this is not happening. There are inconsistencies throughout the state," Kiessling said.
"We've been asking the health department to at least notify us if they are aware of a COVID-19 death in the county so that we can track the death and take appropriate action and necessary precautions to protect our communities," Kiessling said.
One such hypothetical example: a person who became stricken in Pittsburgh and then died at a local hospital of COVID-19 -- but they lived in Bucks County -- their death would be listed in Bucks County and not Allegheny County, where the death actually took place, Kiessling explained.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the health department "changed the rules of the game," Shanaman said.
That could explain why the health department was reporting two Lycoming County deaths and Kiessling knew nothing about them.
In some cases, the discrepancy in the number of coronavirus deaths being reported by the health department and what is actually happening in a particular county is small. In other cases, the gap is significant like in Delaware County, outside Philadelphia, where the health department was reporting 118, but the medical examiner's office has handled at least 205 COVID-19 deaths, Shanaman said.
In recent weeks, Kiessling said, he alerted all hospitals and nursing homes in the county to notify his office when they have any COVID-19 deaths. As of Tuesday night, he had not received any such reports.