You asked
Please confirm how many people under 40 have died with no underlying health conditions since the pandemic started (March 2020 to now).
And is obesity considered an underlying health condition?
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.
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.
This publication will be updated quarterly. COVID-19 deaths involving pre-existing conditions is split by broad age groups between 1-64 and 65+. For those aged between 1-64, there was a total of 1549 deaths in England and Wales 2020 and 1560 deaths registered in quarter 1 of 2021 that were due to COVID-19 and were recorded without any pre-existing conditions.
To fulfil this request for data for those aged under 40, we would need to create a bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held.
Obesity
Obesity is most commonly a secondary condition that would contribute a death. We do hold figures where COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death, with obesity being recorded as a contributing factor. These figures can also be found in table 1a of the pre-existing conditions dataset provided above, please see 'row 21'.
If you would like to discuss your request further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.