While the number of Southwest Colorado residents who have died of COVID-19 remains low, now six months into the pandemic, how many out-of-state people have died at our local hospitals?

It turns out, the answer is not easy to come by.

Mercy Regional Medical Center, Southwest Colorado’s largest medical provider, declined to provide The Durango Herald the number of out-of-state people who have died from COVID-19 at the hospital.

Local hospitals are required to report COVID-19 deaths to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, as well as the health department for the state in which the patient has residency.

A spokesperson with CDPHE said details about individual deaths, including the deceased person’s place of residence, are used by state and local public health officials for disease control and monitoring purposes but are not publicly available because the information is confidential and protected by statute.

Mercy provides the information to the state, but it does not provide the data directly to San Juan Basin Public Health, said Sarah Silvernail, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

“Mercy provides the number of all patients who have died from COVID, regardless of resident status, to the state public health department to which local public health has access,” she wrote in an email to the Herald.

But SJBPH Executive Director Liane Jollon said that is not the case.

“I don’t have access to anything but Colorado data from the state health department,” she said.

Jollon said SJBPH, which serves Archuleta and La Plata counties, has asked medical providers in the region to provide as much COVID-19 data as possible, including nonresident deaths, to understand the virus’ presence in the community and improve tracking.

“We ... asked everyone to keep us apprised of any cases we may need to investigate,” she said. “Because if it goes to Texas, then to CDPHE, then back to us, we’ve lost the ability to contain the case.”

To date, SJBPH has been notified of only two out-of-state COVID-19 deaths at Mercy – New Mexicans who died in July and August.

But because there is no obligation to report the deaths to SJBPH, Jollon said she couldn’t be certain that’s the complete number.

“There’s no guarantee that’s all the fatalities,” Jollon said. “That’s a process we could be left out of.”

Both Archuleta County Coroner Brandon Bishop and La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith said no COVID-19 deaths have come through their offices.

Rhonda Webb, CEO of Pagosa Springs Medical Center, said no one has died from COVID-19 at the hospital.

She said four people were hospitalized for COVID-19 in July, but because PSMC is a small, critical-access hospital, patients who require a higher level of care typically are transferred to larger medical centers.

“We did have a couple of people we transferred out because they needed a higher level of care, but we don’t necessarily know what happened to them,” Webb said.

As regulations aimed at slowing the spread of the virus were relaxed in late spring, and tourists started to flood the state this summer, SJBPH in June started tracking the number of nonresident positive cases discovered at local testing sites.

“While our communities have maintained low case counts, there are a number of our neighboring states experiencing increases,” Jollon said at the time. “Providing nonresident case data will better inform our community about the local transmission of COVID-19 and serves as a reminder to continue to take stringent public health precautions.”

As of Friday, 248 La Plata County residents had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, while 28 nonresidents tested positive at testing sites in the county.

In Archuleta County, the number of out-of-state people who tested positive nearly matches locals – 39 nonresidents vs. 47 residents. As of Thursday, two La Plata County residents have been listed as “deaths among COVID-19.” There have been no deaths among residents in Archuleta County.

Since May, Colorado has provided two death statistics surrounding the novel coronavirus outbreak: deaths among people who had COVID-19 at the time of death and deaths caused by COVID-19.

Deaths among cases are sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm whether they were caused by the virus. Because of privacy laws, the CDC releases confirmations only if a county has exceeded 10 deaths.

jromeo@durangoherald.com