Some 32 care homes in Northern Ireland have been affected by coronavirus, the health minister has said.
Robin Swann confirmed the figure today, which represents a rise from the announced figure of 20 last week.
This morning the Department of Health said deaths from coronavirus in care homes could not be included in daily statistics because it takes several days to register deaths outside hospitals.
Concerns have been raised that the daily figures do not reflect the real number of coronavirus deaths in Northern Ireland. There are 484 care homes in Northern Ireland, with a total of 16,000 beds.
In recent days, two Belfast care homes reported that several of their residents had died from the disease.
[ Read more: Six residents at Belfast care home die after Covid-19 diagnosisOpens in new window ]
Six residents died at Bradley Manor on the Crumlin Road in the north of the city in recent weeks, the home confirmed.
Five of these residents were diagnosed in hospital and so are among the already publicly reported cases.
Our Lady's care home in west Belfast confirmed four residents diagnosed with coronavirus had died.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said this morning he does not "have those details" on deaths in care homes.
But he said health officials have been working with the Northern Ireland Statistical and Research Agency (NISRA) to see if it can extract information about coronavirus deaths from its weekly statistics on all deaths in the north.
"Every death counts. Behind those is a person... It is completely wrong to create an impression that those lives lost don't matter," Dr McBride told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.
"What we will need to do in the fullness of time is, when we have all the data on deaths, is that we will have to look back and see what the impact of this pandemic was," he said.
He said the current daily figures allow health officials to track how the virus is spreading and show the effectiveness of social distancing.
Last week, Health Minister Robin Swann said coronavirus cases had been reported in 20 care homes across the north.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the Public Health Agency (PHA) is working closely with care homes and aims to increase the number of residents and staff being tested.
"We have publicly stated that it is not possible for PHA’s daily Covid-19 bulletin to accurately pick up on a daily basis deaths that occur outside of hospital settings," she said.
"The process for registering deaths in the community takes a number of days.
"It involves a doctor completing a death certificate and then the death being registered by the General Register Office and the Northern Ireland Statistical and Research Agency (NISRA). It takes up to five days to register a death – and sometimes longer."
She said NISRA publishes a weekly bulletin on all deaths in the north, including information on coronavirus deaths.
However, the figures do not detail if the deaths happened in hospitals or care homes.
"We will continue to work with NISRA, the PHA and others to ensure that all published statistics give as full a picture as possible on Covid-19," she said.
Map of global Covid-19 cases by John Hopkins University:
