FOI Ref: ​FOI/2021/3265

You asked

Could you supply me with the numbers of COVID-19 related deaths for the below age groups that were recorded in September 2021, October 2021 and to the date this FOI is actioned in November 2021?  

Given the small number of deaths involved in these cohorts, could you also please give the date each death was reported on by PHE?  And could you also break these numbers down by region?

  • 0-4
  • 10-14
  • 15-19

Could you also more specifically advise me of how many children died of or from COVID-19 in the UK in the 24-hour period between 6pm on the 3rd November 2021 to 6pm on the 4th November 2021?  And could also break this number (if any) down by regions?

So, an example of what I am looking for is this:

England

0-4 = 0

10-14 = 1 (12/9/21)

15-19 = 2 (1/10/21 & 4/10/21)

We said

Thank you for your request.

We hold the following analysis for Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional .

This publication is updated every Tuesday and the latest data available is 26th November 2021.

From 3rd September to 26th November, here are the summed weekly totals for you requested age groups.

  • 0-4 - 8 registered deaths
  • 10-14 - 6 registered deaths
  • 15-19 - 10 registered deaths

ONS deaths are reported with an 11-day lag to allow time for the death registration by family, processing by General Registry office and processing by ONS.

We can however supply deaths by date of occurrence for COVID, which is the date of death within your time-period.

  • 0-4 - 8 death occurrences
  • 10-14 - 6 death occurrences
  • 15-19 - 9 death occurrences

Due to the small numbers involved, we are unable to provide any further geographical disaggregation, when including age and specific cause. This is consistent with the disclosure control methodology used for deaths. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) which renders it an offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individual businesses or persons can be identified, we find that Section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies. Section 44 is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied

If you require specifically from 1st September 2021, we can provide this as a bespoke request. Weekly deaths by specific age group and specific date along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate).

Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

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. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.

Whilst date of death is stated for the person on the certificate, time of death is not routinely recorded therefore we do not hold this information for deaths registered in England and Wales.