COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) announced that as many as 4,000 COVID-19 deaths might have been underreported through the state's reporting system.

These deaths will now be added to the state's death count during the coming week.

Process issues affecting the reconciliation and reporting of these deaths began in October.

The largest number of deaths were from November and December.

Although being reported this week, the deaths will reflect the appropriate date of death on the state's COVID-19 dashboard.

The ODH will continue working with the Auditor of State's office, which has been engaged in an audit of COVID-19 data since September of 2020.

The Ohio Department of Health identified the issue related to the unreconciled COVID-19 deaths during a routine employee training.

As these deaths are added to the counts, the daily reported death counts will be high for a two to three-day period.

After this increase, normal processes will resume, with increased quality assurance related to the death reconciliation process.