FOI Reference: FOI/2021/2714
You said
Please can you tell me how many people have died from Covid-19, by age, category and also by location, defining those with pre-existing health conditions and those with no pre-existing health problems, for the whole Covid-19 pandemic from the very start, up until the current date.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The mortality data published by ONS are derived from the formal process of death registration. For Scotland and Northern Ireland statistics please contact National Records Scotland and NISRA respectively.
Deaths from COVID-19 may include cases where the doctor completing the death certificate diagnosed possible cases of COVID-19, for example, where this was based on relevant symptoms but no test for the virus was conducted. Deaths with a positive test are coded using the ICD10 code U0.71 and those with suspected COVID-19 but no test has been conducted are coded with ICD10 U0.72.
ONS have been producing Pre-existing conditions of people whose death was recorded with an underlying cause of COVID-19, this dataset can be found in section 8 of the Monthly mortality analysis bulletin. This dataset provides a greater insight into the leading pre-existing cause of death groups, for deaths occurring in England and Wales, in 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 that were due to COVID-19.
We do not produce the data with details of pre-existing health conditions to a smaller geography as you have requested as it is considered personal information. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) 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 individuals 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.
This is in line with our disclosure control policy: Policy on protecting confidentiality in tables of birth and death statistics.
Please see 'table 1a, row 28 (2020) and row 29 (2021)' for deaths where COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause, but had no other pre-existing conditions recorded on the death certificate, England and Wales. Table 1b represents these figures for England and table 1c figures are for Wales. Additionally, you can also see the leading pre-existing conditions that were reported on the death certificate where COVID-19 was the underlying cause.
This publication will be updated quarterly. COVID-19 deaths involving pre-existing conditions is split by broad age groups between 1-64 and 65+.
There was a total of 9400 (0-64: 1549 / 65 and over: 7851) deaths in England and Wales 2020 and 6483 (0-64: 1560/ 65 and over: 4923) deaths registered in quarter 1 of 2021 that were due to COVID-19 and were recorded without any pre-existing conditions.
We have not yet finalised the analysis for quarter 2 of 2021. As such, this information is considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. While we recognise the desirability of information being freely available, we also acknowledge that public authorities must have the freedom to be able to determine their own publication timetables. This allows them to deal with the necessary preparation, administration, and context of publication. Furthermore, public interest is best served through the public having confidence that the information published by ONS is accurate and final.
Release on an ad-hoc basis would not achieve this aim and will cause unnecessary confusion if they were to be misrepresented. In this case, exempting the information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.