FOI Ref: FOI/2022/3547
You asked
Can you provide the data of COVID 19 deaths in Northern Ireland by each quarter in 2020 and does the ONS hold the data on the known falsified death certificates?
How many who died of COVID 19 deaths in this data had been injected with the COVID 19 vaccine. The quarterly data of COVID 19 deaths is crucial to understanding the effects of COVID 19 Vaccines on COVID 19 Deaths.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Falsified Death Certificates
Doctors are required by law to certify the cause of death 'to the best of their knowledge and belief'. That means they use their medical expertise to decide the cause based on symptoms, physical examination, hospital records, laboratory tests, and all the other information available. If death is certified by a coroner, the Coroner's Court follows legal rules of evidence when deciding the causes of death. No-one has the power to tell a doctor or coroner to reach a particular decision about the cause of death. There are long-standing guidelines and processes which have to be followed, and some changes have been made to these to allow for the circumstances of the pandemic - but there is no change to the legal and professional obligation to record the cause of death accurately.
You can read the government guidelines for doctors on completing a medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD).
We do not hold information on falsified death certificates.
Northern Ireland COVID-19 deaths and deaths by vaccination status
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) responsible for statistics pertaining to Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at info@NISRA.gov.uk.
We do publish headline COVID-19 deaths as part of our Deaths Registered Weekly in England and Wales however, as we receive Northern Ireland data from NISRA for this publication. However, they will need to be contacted for any further disaggregation of this data.
We do not hold data on vaccinations in Northern Ireland.