Deaths from COVID-19 in Greater Manchester by age

You asked

​Please can you provide me with the following information:

1. The total death figures 1^st February 2020 to 19^th January 2021 of every person in Greater Manchester who has died as a direct result of Covid-19?

I would only require the figures who were killed by Covid-19 as the primary cause of death only.

2. I would also like the figures of people who were listed as a covid-19 death who died within 28 days of testing positive outside of a hospital setting.

3. I would also like the figures of children under 16 who have died in Greater Manchester as a direct only cause of Covid-19

We said

​Thank you for your request. Please see the following answers to your questions.

1. The total death figures 1st February 2020 to 19th January 2021 of every person in Greater Manchester who has died as a direct result of Covid-19?

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.

We have not yet produced a finalised breakdown of mortality data by cause for England and Wales. However, we do intend to publish annual mortality data by cause and area for 2020 in the summer of 2021.

As such, the information you have requested 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. Furthermore, as a central government department and producer of official statistics, we need to have the freedom to be able to determine our own publication timetables. This is to allow us to deal with the necessary preparation, administration and context of publications. It would be unreasonable to consider disclosure when to do so would undermine our functions.

This exemption is subject to a public interest test. We recognise the desirability of information being freely available and this is considered by ONS when publication schedules are set in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The need for timely data must be balanced against the practicalities of applying statistical skill and judgement to produce the high quality, assured data needed to inform decision-making. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data which is arguably not in the public interest.  This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before.

However, please see the following data we have available related to your request:

Please see the following data showing deaths involving COVID-19, by local authority and health board in the following publication: Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board. Mortality data is available for local authorities that make up Greater Manchester here. In the tables labelled 'Registrations -- Pivot table' and 'Occurrences -- Pivot table', you can see how the mortality figures vary week on week, using the drop-down toggle and filtering on the week number and cause of death options.

For clarity: The filter/drop-down on the pivot tables for 'All-causes' does not contain COVID-19 deaths. By default, both options are ticked. If you were to untick the COVID-19 option it would deduct from the total deaths, leaving you with deaths from all other causes. Additionally, if both were ticked and you unticked All-causes, it would leave you with the total number of COVID-19 deaths.

The below tables have been filtered and provide the total number of deaths in Greater Manchester below:

We also provide a facility via customise my data, you can also filter deaths by week and location here as well.

2. I would also like the figures of people who were listed as a Covid-19 death who died within 28 days of testing positive outside of a hospital setting.

The mortality data published by ONS are derived from the formal process of death registration. 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.

This differs to the data published on the GOV.UK website, which are counts of all causes of death where a positive test for COVID-19 has been confirmed. We do not have access to data on when the test was conducted, as this is not recorded on the death certificate. Therefore, we do not hold the data requested.

However, place of death is contained in the aforementioned tables.

3. I would also like the figures of children under 16 who have died in Greater Manchester as a direct only cause of Covid-19:

We have not yet produced the data you have requested. There is a view to publish mortality data by cause and age when we have finalised the 2020 dataset. Therefore, this data is also considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.