Deaths from influenza, pneumonia, and respiratory illness 2015 to 2020

You asked

​Please provide me with details (for England and Wales) for the 5-year period ending the date of your reply (or as close thereto as reasonably practicable), broken down into years ending the date of your reply (or as close thereto as reasonably practicable) for each of these years, of:

1. The number of people who died in each of the aforementioned one-year periods
2. The number of people in each of the said one-year periods who died of influenza
3. The number of people in each of the said one-year periods who died of pneumonia
4. The number of people in each of the said one-year periods who died of other respiratory problems
5. The number of people in each of the said one-year periods who died BECAUSE OF (rather than simply WITH, but NOT of) COVID-19 (ie, COVID-19 was the primary cause of death) and the number of people in this group on whom post-mortem examinations were carried out. Of those on whom post-mortem examinations were not carried out, what were the bases of the diagnoses of death?
6. A breakdown, for each of the said one-year periods, of deaths from influenza, pneumonia and other respiratory problems into recognised age groupings.

Please could I also have the corresponding information for Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Also

In respect of the whole of the UK please provide details, for each month of each of the five years preceding the date of your reply, of the number of people who -

1. Tested for COVID-19

2. Who tested positive for COVID-19

3. Who, amongst those who tested positive, in fact tested false positive

4. Who, amongst those who tested negative, tested false negative

5. Who, amongst those who tested positive, tested as genuinely positive and not false positive

6. Who, amongst those who tested positive, died of COVID-19.

7. Who, amongst those who tested false negative, died of COVID-19

8. Who, amongst those who tested negative but not false negative, died of COVID-19

9. Who, amongst those who tested false positive, died of COVID-19

with each of the above broken down into the usual, recognised age groupings.

We said

​Thank you for your enquiry.

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. 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.

However, we do publish headline figures within our Vital statistics in the UK: births, deaths and marriages.

2020:

According to the following bulletin: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional, using the latest data available for w/e 1 January 2021 (week 53 of 2020) there have been 614,114 deaths registered in England and Wales.

Whilst the data has not yet been finalised for 2020, all three Statistical authorities have published blogs with year-end figures.

• England and Wales - https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/01/12/counting-deaths-involving-coronavirus-a-year-in-review/
• Scotland - https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/annual-deaths-excess-deaths-1855-2020.xlsx
• Northern Ireland - https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/monthly-deaths

Influenza, pneumonia and respiratory deaths in the past five years:

2020:

In our Weekly Deaths Bulletin, deaths registered in 2020 from respiratory illness and influenza and pneumonia combined are recorded weekly. Please see the following figures taken from this bulletin:

• Deaths where the underlying cause was respiratory disease (ICD-10 J00-J99): 63, 131
• Deaths involving Influenza and Pneumonia: 116,606
• Deaths due to Influenza and Pneumonia: 20,903

More in-depth analysis of deaths occurring between 1 January and 31 August 2020, including a split of flu and pneumonia figures for England and Wales: Deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia, England and Wales.

A full breakdown of influenza and pneumonia deaths separately for the rest of 2020 will be available once data are finalised in July 2021.

As such, the number of deaths occurring in 2020 for influenza and pneumonia separately 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.

2015 – 2019:

Our NOMIS webservice provides deaths by selected ICD-10 code (cause of death) or leading cause groupings for England and Wales from 2013-2019.

Using NOMIS, data can also be disaggregated into 5-year age groupings.

Please see the download accompanying this request named 'NOMIS deaths from influenza pneumonia and respiratory illness by age 2015-2019'. This provides a dataset with 5-year age bands and broad cause respiratory deaths for 2015-2019.

Please also see the following table, which provides deaths involving influenza, pneumonia and other respiratory causes of death by broad cause chapter:

Deaths from COVID-19 where COVID-19 was the primary cause of death

The doctor or coroner certifying a death can record more than one health condition or event on the form. The medical certificate of cause of death has two parts. Part 1 contains the sequence of health conditions or events leading directly to death, while Part 2 can contain other health conditions that contributed to the death but were not part of the direct sequence. For statistical purposes one of the health conditions on the certificate is chosen as the 'underlying cause of death'. The underlying cause of death is defined as the health condition or event that started the train of events leading to death and is worked out according to rules from the World Health Organisation (WHO). COVID-19 is the underlying cause of death in around 92% of deaths where it was mentioned on the death certificate.

You can read in detail about the coding of causes of death and identifying the underlying cause in the ONS User guide to mortality statistics and the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) instruction manual.

COVID-19 deaths both 'involving' and 'due to' can be found in figure 2 of our Deaths Registered Weekly publishing using the Download my Data button. We use the term "due to COVID-19" when referring only to deaths where that illness was recorded as the underlying cause of death. We use the term "involving COVID-19" when referring to deaths that had that illness mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, either as underlying cause or contributory factor. Please see the following table taken from this publication, which provides these figures.

Autopsies on those who have died from COVID-19

In order to provide the number of people who died from COVID-19 who underwent a post-mortem examination, we would need to create 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.

Once 2020 death registrations are finalised in July 2021, we will be offering bespoke services for 2020 mortality data. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales will be available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate).

Deaths with Positive or False negative COVID-19 test results:

Our data is taken from the death certificate and COVID-19 test results are not recorded as part of the death registration process.

For deaths involving COVID-19 we use WHO International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision.  codes taken from the information supplied.

U07.1 COVID-19, virus identified: Use this code when COVID-19 has been confirmed by laboratory testing irrespective of severity of clinical signs or symptoms. Use additional code, if desired, to identify pneumonia or other manifestations.

U07.2 COVID-19, virus not identified:  Use this code when COVID-19 is diagnosed clinically or epidemiologically but laboratory testing is inconclusive or not available. Use additional code, if desired, to identify pneumonia or other manifestations

For example, a doctor may have clinically diagnosed COVID-19 based on symptoms, but this diagnosis may not have been confirmed because no test was available, or the test result was inconclusive.

Of the 73,477 deaths due to COVID-19, 4,009 (5.5% were classified as "suspected" COVID-19. Including all deaths involving COVID-19, "suspected" COVID-19 was recorded on 5.6% (4,589 deaths) of all deaths involving COVID-19 in England and Wales.

Therefore, we are unable to supply "Who, amongst those who tested positive and tested false negative subsequently died of COVID-19 or Who, amongst those who tested negative but not false negative, or tested false positive and subsequently died of COVID-19" as we do not hold this information.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) may be better placed to assist with your request. They can be contacted via the following link: DHSC FOI Contact Form.

Public Health England may also be able to assist. They can be contacted via email at: wn_coronavirus@phe.gov.uk for COVID-19 related queries, or enquiries@phe.gov.uk for regular enquiries.

COVID-19 testing information:

The ONS COVID-19 Infection Survey began on 26 April 2020, and therefore ONS does hold data on time periods before this date.

Each week we publish a bulletin which includes results from the latest week. In the dataset accompanying the release you can find the information below:

• Number of tests conducted in the last two weeks in England on tab 1c, Wales on tab 3c, Northern Ireland on tab 4c and Scotland on tab 5c
• Response rates for England on 7b, Wales on tab 7c, Northern Ireland on tab 7d and Scotland on tab 7e
• Swab tests per day for the UK, back to 26 April 2020 on tab 7f
• Modelled daily rates of the percentage of the population testing positive for COVID-19 by age/school year, in England on tab 1g
• The percentage testing positive for COVID-19 by age/school year for non-overlapping 14 days periods in England, back to 26 April 2020 on tab 1h.

The results reported from the COVID-19 Infection Survey are directly from the test, and no test is perfect. While we do not know the true sensitivity and specificity of the test because COVID-19 is a new virus, our data and related studies provide an indication of what these are likely to be. To understand the potential impact, we have estimated what prevalence would be in two scenarios using different possible test sensitivity and specificity rates. You can find more information on these scenarios in our methodology article.