Additionally, they would still count as COVID-related deaths in other jurisdictions. The removals came after health officials significantly narrowed the definition of a death from COVID-19 in New Brunswick as deaths in the province quickly climbed to alarming levels.
The change was “not publicly announced at the time,” according to Department of Health spokesman Adam Bowie. New Brunswick revealed last week that the actual death toll from COVID-19 was higher than previously reported, after an epidemiological review raised the number of deaths from the pandemic to 572. The review found 125 deaths between 1 March 2020 and May 31, 2022 should be added to the tally, while 46 deaths related to COVID-19 should be subtracted. The quiet change in the definition of death from COVID concerns Gary Myles, whose 55-year-old wife Wendy died in March two weeks after contracting COVID-19 at Saint John Regional Hospital. He was initially admitted for hernia surgery.
They keep the countdown to a minimum.- Gary Myles Miles was told the death was the result of “massive organ failure,” and she’s worried that might mean she’s not counted among New Brunswick’s COVID-19 deaths, even though everything went wrong for her after contracting the virus. He doesn’t like hearing that the province is narrowing the definitions and removing COVID deaths from its totals, including subtracting five deaths since March, the month his wife died. “The government is not pushing to help the public realize that COVID is still a problem out there, and for me being around it, COVID is still a problem out there,” Miles said. Wendy Myles, 75, was an active gardener but died in March after contracting COVID-19 at Saint John Regional Hospital. Her husband, Gary, fears the province is minimizing the risk of COVID by excluding the deaths it has been counting. (Submitted by Gary Myles) “They keep the countdown to a minimum.”

NB practices differ from other jurisdictions

New Brunswick officials had adopted a semi-broad definition of what constituted a death from COVID-19 as recently as January, citing “a desire to be transparent,” according to then-Health Department spokesman Bruce McFarlane. At the time, the province’s policy was to count every person with COVID-19 who died as a death from COVID-19, “unless there is a clear alternative cause of death, such as a traffic accident.” This is broadly in line with longstanding recommendations on how to record COVID deaths from Public Health Canada and similar to how records are kept in other countries. Because the virus can be especially deadly in people with serious pre-existing health conditions, when a person contracts COVID and dies from an exacerbation of a secondary health problem, there is a general assumption that COVID was involved in causing the death, even if it was not a direct cause. . Many jurisdictions count any person who tests positive for COVID with 28 to 30 days of death as a COVID death. Not New Brunswick. (David Horemans/CBC) In most US states, deaths are counted as related to COVID-19 if a person has tested positive for COVID within 30 days of the death, regardless of whether this is ultimately noted on a person’s death certificate or not . British Columbia uses a similar 30-day positive test rule. In the UK, two counts of COVID deaths are published side by side. One reports all cases where COVID appears on a person’s death certificate, and a second counts every person who died within 28 days of testing positive for COVID, whether or not it appears on the death certificate. In March, however, New Brunswick chose a much more restrictive definition for itself.
In April, British Columbia under provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry began counting every death of a person with a recent positive COVID result as a COVID death. (Mike McArthur/CBC) In an explanation given last Friday by New Brunswick’s chief epidemiologist, Mathieu Chalifoux, it was revealed that COVID must now be recorded as a “main” cause of death in “Part 1” of a person’s official death registration form by an attending physician or other medical practitioner to be counted in New Brunswick. He said other deaths of people with COVID should not be counted, even if the virus appears on their death certificate as an “other” listed cause of death in “Part 2” of the form. “The deaths would have been removed from the count if they weren’t part of that first party alert,” Chalifoux said. “That is, they were not identified at the time of death as the primary or immediate cause of death.” This led to the retrospective removal of 46 people from New Brunswick’s COVID-19 death numbers, including 31 who had listed COVID on their death registration forms as their “other” cause of death. Mathieu Chalifoux, chief COVID-19 epidemiologist at Public Health, in a technical briefing for reporters last Friday, said 46 deaths from COVID-19 were removed from the New Brunswick total. (Government of New Brunswick/Zoom) New Brunswick’s new system keeps death numbers lower than they would otherwise be and makes it difficult to compare the province to other jurisdictions with more standardized counting methods. Chalifoux suggested that this was not a concern. “While we know that not all jurisdictions report deaths in the same way or with the same definition, we are confident in our rate in New Brunswick,” said Chalifoux. Miles believes the province is not being honest with the public about how deadly COVID remains, and hopes people don’t mistake an artificially low death toll as a sign the virus isn’t a threat to New Brunswick. “If I can save one person out there, that’s all I want,” he said of the decision to share his own experience.