More than 10,000 people have died in New York City due to the coronavirus in confirmed and probable cases, per newly released data from the city's health department.
The big picture: New York City's revised toll means that over 28,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus as of Tuesday, per data from Johns Hopkins.
Details: The more than 3,000 new fatalities logged by the city's health department refers to New Yorkers who did not test positive for the virus, but whose death certificates list COVID-19 as a suspected cause of death, NYC health department spokesperson Michael Lanza confirmed to Axios.
- "We are committed to consistent reporting and with case definitions now established, we are making this information available to the public," Lanza said, when asked what prompted the New York City health department to include probable cases.
- On April 5, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists approved the CDC to log probable cases of COVID-19 along with confirmed cases, in a statement on establishing a standardized case definition for the virus.
What's next: States like Ohio, Connecticut and Delaware recently began reporting probable coronavirus cases, per the New York Times. The country's death toll is likely to increase dramatically as more probable cases are included in state data.
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