THREAD: Yesterday I discovered that TDCJ has been deleting deaths from its COVID death count. These were all ppl who tested + before they died, & TDCJ posted them online as COVID deaths, often filed death reports listing COVID -- then removed them, w/o saying anything publicly.

Only one of the 7 I found initially deleted had an autopsy. And six of the seven names that were taken off the TDCJ website were removed days after a damning report released on deaths in Texas prisons. https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1325914300096110592?s=20

Yesterday I called them about it - and today they put three of the deaths back on their site.

And to be clear, this wasn't just a clerical error/change in the names listed -- these people were actually subtracted from the total presumed or confirmed COVID deaths.

For example, here’s the death notice they posted about Jimmy Ray Price on July 23. He tested positive in June and died a little over two weeks later. TDCJ told the OAG in the in-custody death report that the medical cause of death was “COVID-19 pneumonia.”

There was no autopsy done but, after announcing his death from covid back in July, this month TDCJ deleted him from the list of covid deaths and subtracted him from their count.

After I started calling yesterday, they replaced his name and two others.

Yesterday, the TDCJ spokesman said that removing names was not their decision, and that the universities contracted for medical care to prisoners made the call to remove people long after the fact. (Reached out to them for comment, too & they both said they're looking into it.)

The spokesman confirmed yesterday there were 7 cases like this where deaths were intentionally removed.

And, again: All seven had tested positive for COVID-19 according to what TDCJ said at the time. So whatever changed was not about whether they had COVID but about whether these people - who all contracted COVID in prison and died days/weeks later - are considered COVID deaths.

Six of them list COVID-19 in medical cause of death in the reporting to the OAG. Things like this:

Six of them did not have autopsies, so it’s unclear what could have changed in the intervening months to alter the cause of death *for someone who tested positive for covid* and then died.

And, to be clear, they aren’t just removing ones w/o autopsies; many prisoners didn’t get autopsies.

And, for the one that did have an autopsy - Floyd Thomas Scott - the in-custody death report lists the medical cause of death as follows: “Bacterial pneumonia and sepsis. COVID-19 is the underlying cause of death.”

Worth noting TDCJ calls many of their COVID deaths are “presumed” and not “confirmed” so that could explain the change, to some degree. But it's still baffling when someone tests +, dies weeks/days later and then is magically w/o an autopsy recategorized as not-covid death

Also, we don’t know WHICH are confirmed or presumed, or which category these seven were in.

The three restored appear to have been restored to the presumed and not confirmed. But it seems impossible they could ever be "confirmed" since they didn't have autopsies.

Admittedly, out of the large number of deaths in Texas prisons - 168 confirmed or presumed as of now - seven is not a ton. However, it’s concerning because it makes it difficult to figure out how much to trust their data.

If an agency inexplicably removes deaths months after the fact without telling the public and then quietly replaces some after being called on it, it is great they are responsive but not great in terms of reliability of this or their other data.

For months, @EvaRuth and I have been discussing the many gaps in reporting. Sometimes, we found, TDCJ reports a death as covid to the OAG and doesn’t count it in their own numbers or list it on their own site.

And sometimes they list it on their site and wait months to tell the OAG - which is technically a misdemeanor. They're supposed to report deaths within 30 days (covid or otherwise). https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1286333593028112385?s=20

Often, the press releases being posted to the site are weeks or months old - which makes it really difficult to tell in real time what the CURRENT death toll looks like. And THAT makes it hard to figure out how well their policies are/aren't working.

And don’t get me started on the positivity numbers or, worse, the symptomatic/asymptomatic figures. Questions about this data came up some during the Pack trial https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1310983514083528706

Oh and one more thing! Using, @marshallproject’s @news_klaxon (which tracks changes made to webpages) we found that six of the deaths were removed on Thursday, three days after a damning report on deaths in Texas prisons. https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1325914300096110592?s=20