You asked
Can you please provide information of how many deaths have occurred where Covid-19 has been listed as the disease or condition leading directly to death 1(a) on death certificate.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the provision of mortality statistics for England and Wales. You can find this information are part of our Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales: deaths occurring in April 2020.
There were 33,841 deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) that occurred between 1 March and 30 April 2020 registered up to 5 May 2020 in England and Wales; of these, 32,143 (95.0%) had COVID-19 assigned as the underlying cause of death.
The doctor certifying a death can list all causes in the chain of events that led to the death and pre-existing conditions that may have contributed to the death. Using this information, we determine an underlying cause of death. More information on this process can be found in our user guide. In the majority of cases (32,143 deaths, 95.0%) when COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, it was found to be the underlying cause of death.
Our definition of COVID-19 includes some cases where the certifying doctor suspected the death involved COVID-19 but was not certain, for example, because no test was done. Of the 32,143 deaths with an underlying cause of COVID-19, 1,325 (4.1%) were classified as "suspected" COVID-19. Including mentions, "suspected" COVID-19 was recorded on 4.7% of all deaths involving COVID-19.
Analysis for May Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales will be released in June 2020.
You might be interested in our new Customise my data service will also provide up to date weekly counts of Deaths involving COVID-19.