Medical certification, ICD mortality coding, and reporting mortality associated with COVID-19: technical note, 7 June 2020

This technical note describes medical certification of cause of death and classification (International Classification of Diseases [ICD] mortality coding) of deaths related to COVID-19. The primary goal is to identify all deaths due to COVID-19 in all countries, including those not yet following WHO international norms and standards for medical certificates of cause of death and ICD mortality coding. It also addresses the related issue of estimating all deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The document is divided into three sections:

• identifying COVID-19 deaths;
• coding COVID-19 deaths; and
• measuring and reporting crude mortality in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (excess mortality).