SCORES OF deaths unreported in West Virginia, putting data for reopening in doubt.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced Wednesday that an estimated 168 coronavirus deaths went unreported, throwing into question the data that officials used to justify lifting pandemic restrictions.

Justice said officials discovered that dozens of facilities — mostly hospitals and nursing homes — did not report the deaths to the state’s health department. The Republican governor on Monday had heralded a sharp drop in covid-19 deaths since the beginning of the year, metrics health officials cited to support the governor easing restrictions on businesses.

“This is absolutely not acceptable,” Justice said. “I’m really sorry.”

Dr. Ayne Amjad, the state’s health officer, said officials are waiting to find out if there are more unreported deaths. She blamed it on facilities not filling out death reports online to the state’s health department in a timely matter.

“We are trying to find a way to hold people more accountable and their feet to the fire, because we want numbers faster,” she said. “We do not want to have numbers like these again.”

The Department of Health and Human Resources said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that 84% of the deaths occurred in December or January. The agency released a list of 64 hospitals, nursing homes and care centers across 30 counties that did not report deaths.

The single facility with the most unreported deaths was a hospital in Parkersburg, Camden-Clark Medical Center Memorial Campus, with 12 fatalities. There were also 25 people across the state who all died at homes and were initially unreported.

With the previous data, the state was ranked 33rd among states for most deaths per capita, according to Johns Hopkins. That could change once the unreported deaths are counted.

The health department’s public data currently shows 2,330 total deaths — which does not include the 168. Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations declined over the past two months, according to current state data, which led Justice to lift capacity restrictions on businesses and allow larger social gatherings last week.

Justice revealed the news at his regularly scheduled coronavirus briefing by calling it “very disturbing.” He begins each virtual news conference by reading the ages, gender and home counties of those who have newly died from covid-19. He said he would honor the 168 dead on Friday.

The governor said he found out about the deaths about an hour before starting his briefing.

The revelation was made the same day the state House of Delegates passed a bill that would provide immunity to health care providers, essential businesses and others from certain pandemic lawsuits.

It’s the second such discovery of dozens of unreported deaths during the pandemic in West Virginia.

In November, the Department of Health and Human Resources’ vital registration office flagged more than two dozen deaths that happened weeks or months before and had not been reported as coronavirus-related, Amjad said. Covid-19 deaths are supposed to be filled out on a separate form and reported to the state immediately. Most of those deaths that were flagged occurred in hospitals and nursing homes, Amjad said.

“If that death report is not filled out, we don’t know about it,” Amjad said.

State data shows that 19.4% of West Virginia’s 1.78 million residents are partially vaccinated against the coronavirus. About 12.2% are fully vaccinated.