Public Health has updated how COVID-19 deaths are defined, resulting in 79 more deaths being attributed to the virus.

Chief epidemiologist Mathieu Chalifoux outlined the changes to reporters during a technical briefing on Friday.

“As a result of the changing epidemiology brought forward by the Omicron variant and subsequently changes to our case management strategies, Public Health New Brunswick updated its definition for a deceased COVID-19 case,” said Chalifoux.

“Deaths were now reported if there was a clinical indication that COVID-19 was the primary cause of death or directly contributed to the death.”

A subsequent review for the period of March 1, 2020, to May 31, 2022, found that 125 cases should be added to the death toll and 46 deaths should be removed.

That brings the total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic to 572.

“From this, we did not identify any single source or cause as the main contributor to this discrepancy,” said Chalifoux.

“While we know that not all jurisdictions report deaths in the same manner or with the same definition, we are confident in our New Brunswick rate following this reconciliation exercise.”

When a condition or disease like COVID-19 is listed as a cause of death, Chalifoux said it falls into one of two categories: the primary or contributing cause of death, or an “other disease noted” at the time of death.

The changes mean any cases that fell into the second category have been removed from the death toll, he said.

Chalifoux said most of the adjustments occurred from February 2022 onward, which is when New Brunswick saw a large volume of COVID activity during the Omicron wave.

There were “minimal changes” observed during 2020 and 2021, he said, suggesting the count during that period was accurate.

Since the changes have been active since June, Chalifoux said they do not expect to do a reconciliation exercise for the deaths reported from June 1 onward.

You can view the report by clicking here.

There were 79 additional COVID deaths in N.B. during the first 26 months of the pandemic than originally reported.

Public Health recently completed a reconciliation of deaths between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2022.

125 deaths were added to the count, while 46 were removed.

— Brad Perry (@BradMPerry) October 14, 2022