You asked
There were several BLM protests in the UK, the largest one taking place in London. Please provide the following :-
- How many members of the police force died from COVID following these marches?
- How many members of the police force were tested as positive following these marches?
You said
Thank you for your request.
Please see the following analysis of positivity rates by occupation in our monthly characteristics article from July. Unfortunately, we would be unable to provide a further breakdown of those we have tested by specific occupation, as this would be disclosive.
With regards to deaths of police officers from COVID-19 following the BLM marches, it would be impossible for us to determine how many police officers have died from COVID-19 directly as a result of the BLM marches. In order to produce this analysis, we would be required to know which police officers were on duty on the days the marches took place and establish which officers contracted COVID-19 whilst on duty. This information is not provided on the death certificate and therefore is not held by us.
We do not hold analysis of COVID-19 deaths broken down by occupations after the 30 August 2020. We have published information on this previously, Coronavirus related deaths by occupation: 9 March to 30 June 2020, but the COVID-19 death totals following June 2020 are very small and so disaggregation of this data by occupation could pose a disclosure risk, making it possible to identify individual records.
We may look to publish data on COVID-19 deaths and occupation more generally should there be a significant rise in deaths. We are constantly reassessing this to see how we can continue to publish analysis to inform users.