Fremont County Coroner Mark Stratmoen shared today, November 12th, there have been 4 COVID-related at-home deaths since October 24th. “This represents a significant change in the dynamics of the virus in the community.” These are the first COVID-related coroner cases; prior to these, the deaths have been in medical facilities.
“General pandemic infection numbers for the county in this area continue to worsen, and with community compliance with recommended precautions very poor, in my opinion, I would expect this number to increase during the next few months,” Stratmoen stated in his offices’ monthly update.
As of November 4th, a total of 135 coroner cases have been reported so far in 2020; that is two more than this same time last year. Most classifications are seeing an increase of 2 for 2020 compared to 2019. So far this year there have been 77 naturals, 34 accidents (only 1 over last year), 16 suicides, and 14 traffic fatalities. Homicides are trending down with only 3 so far in 2020 compared to 7 at this time last year.