You asked
FOI/2021/2225
It has recently been reported that a great white shark has been tracked swimming towards English waters. If i tested positive for COVID-19 and was swimming in the sea 25 days later and just happened to be attacked and killed by said shark would my death be added to the statistics as a COVID-19 death as it was within 28 days?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
If someone dies in circumstances involving an accident, violence or suspicious circumstances, the case is referred to a coroner for investigation. A post-mortem examination is carried out and usually an inquest is held. The Coroner's Court hears all the evidence and follows legal rules of evidence when deciding the causes of death. While we cannot prejudge the decision of a court of law on any specific circumstance, it seems extremely unlikely that a coroner would find that someone who was involved in a shark attack, or was the victim of any other type of accidental or violent injury, had died as a result of COVID-19, whether or not they had a positive test.
ONS data are based on the medical certificate of cause of death completed by a doctor or the findings of a coroner, and are different from the figures on COVID-19 deaths published on the government's COVID-19 dashboard which shows 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test'. You can read a blog by Professor John Newton of Public Health England about the complexities of counting COVID-19 deaths and the different methods used.
You can read in detail about the coding of causes of death and identifying the underlying cause in the ONS User guide to mortality statistics and the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) instruction manual.