You asked
Please provide the current cumulative number of UK deaths that are attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, where there has been no known previous underlying health conditions.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for producing mortality statistics 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.
We have been producing Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales in the response to COVID-19. This publication provides a greater insight into the leading underlying causes of death groups for deaths occurring in England and Wales between March and June 2020.
We define a pre-existing condition here as the last health condition mentioned on the first part of the death certificate when it came before the coronavirus (COVID-19) or was an independent contributory factor in the death, mentioned in part II. Where only COVID-19 was recorded on the death certificate, or COVID-19 and subsequent conditions caused by COVID-19 were recorded, we refer to these deaths as having "No pre-existing conditions". Of the 50,335 deaths that occurred in March to June 2020 involving COVID-19 in England and Wales, 45,859 (91.1%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 4,476 (8.9%) had none. COVID-19 deaths where there was no pre-existing condition between March and June 2020 are included below, this can be found on table 5.
- No pre-existing condition: England and Wales - 4,476
- No pre-existing condition: England - 4,169
- No pre-existing condition: Wales - 294
In order to provide updated figures for deaths from COVID-19 with no underlying health conditions, we would need to create bespoke analysis, therefore we do not hold this information.
However, provisional monthly death registration data for England and Wales, broken down by sex, age and country are now available in this monthly publication: Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales. This publication contains data from July onwards and includes deaths due to COVID-19 and leading causes of death. Leading causes is also available on table 11 and includes figures for the five-year average.
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.