Deaths in 2020 that have not involved COVID-19

Dyddiad y datganiad:
15 February 2021

You asked

​Can you please send a list of deaths in 2020 that have not involved Covid-19.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Within our Deaths Registered Weekly in England and Wales publication, we publish all cause deaths and deaths involving respiratory causes alongside COVID-19 deaths.

We have the following data set available for data including deaths from 28th December 2019 to 10 July 2020. Death registrations not involving coronavirus (COVID-19): England and Wales

Leading causes of death for 2020 can be found within the following link to our monthly mortality analysis: Monthly Mortality Analysis, England and Wales. Please see Table 11a and 11b in the December spreadsheet, which provides deaths from 1 January to 31 December 2020 by top 10 leading cause, the death rate per percentage of the population, and a comparison to the five-year average for England and Wales respectively.

Table 11a: Age-standardised mortality rate for selected leading causes of death6, per 100,000 people, England, deaths registered in December 2020 and year to date compared with the five-year average 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Year to date (1 January to 31 December 2020)
CauseRank in year to dateNumber of deathsRate per 100,000 populationLower confidence limitUpper confidence limit
Top ten leading causes of death in year to date 2020​​​​
COVID-191st    69,101125.5124.6126.5
Dementia and Alzheimer's disease2nd    66,060119.5118.6120.4
Ischaemic heart diseases3rd    51,97994.994.195.7
Cerebrovascular diseases4th    27,68150.349.750.9
Chronic lower respiratory diseases5th    26,91749.448.850
Malignant neoplasm of trachea, bronchus and lung6th    26,57148.447.849
Influenza and pneumonia7th    18,6563433.534.5
Malignant neoplasm of colon, sigmoid, rectum and anus8th    15,96029.529.130
Symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions9th    14,38526.225.826.7
Malignant neoplasms, stated or presumed to be primary of lymphoid, haematopoietic and related tissue10th    11,10920.219.820.6

Download this table Table 11a: Age-standardised mortality rate for selected leading causes of death6, per 100,000 people, England, deaths registered in December 2020 and year to date compared with the five-year average 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

.xls .csv

Table 11b: Age-standardised mortality rate for selected leading causes of death6, per 100,000 people, Wales, deaths registered in December 2020 and year to date compared with the five-year average
Year to date (1 January to 31 December 2020)
CausedRank in year to dateNumber of deathsRate per 100,000 populationLower confidence limitUpper confidence limit
Top ten leading causes of death in year to date 2020​​​​
COVID-191st      4,376129.3125.4133.1
Dementia and Alzheimer's disease2nd      3,897115.8112.2119.5
Ischaemic heart diseases3rd      3,608106.6103.1110.1
Cerebrovascular diseases4th      1,92957.354.759.8
Chronic lower respiratory diseases5th      1,84053.951.456.3
Malignant neoplasm of trachea, bronchus and lung6th      1,78452.449.954.8
Influenza and pneumonia7th      1,46343.841.646.1
Malignant neoplasm of colon, sigmoid, rectum and anus8th         98729.227.331
Symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions9th         93929.627.731.6
Malignant neoplasm of prostate10th         69220.318.821.8

Notes

  1. Age-standardised mortality rates per 100,000 people, standardised to the 2013 European Standard Population. Monthly rates in this bulletin are adjusted to allow for comparisons with annual rates. For more information, see the Measuring the data section of the bulletin.
  2. Figures are for deaths registered rather than deaths occurring in each period.
  3. Figures for 2020 are based on provisional mortality data and projected populations.
  4. Figures exclude non-residents.
  5. "COVID-19" includes only deaths where COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death. This has been included to allow comparisons with the leading causes of death in each month.
  6. This table includes the ten most common leading causes of death registered in the month. The Office for National Statistics's (ONS's) leading causes of death groupings are based on a list developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). This categorises causes of death using the International Classification of Diseases, tenth edition (ICD-10) into groups that are epidemiologically more meaningful than single ICD-10 codes, for the purpose of comparing the most common causes of death in the population.
  7. The lower and upper 95% confidence limits have been provided. These form a confidence interval, which is a measure of the statistical precision of an estimate and shows the range of uncertainty around the estimated figure. As a general rule, if the confidence interval around one figure overlaps with the interval around another, we cannot say with certainty that there is more than a chance difference between the two figures.
  8. The number of deaths provided for the five-year average is the mean average of 2015 to 2019, rather than the sum of deaths in 2015 to 2019 as published elsewhere.
  9. An ad-hoc dataset has been published to provide a backseries for the leading causes of death for deaths registered in January to June 2020. Data after this point can be found in our previous releases.
  10. Analysis of finalised data for 2020, including more detailed breakdowns of the leading causes of death by age and sex, will be published later this year as part of our annual bulletin: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregistrationsummarytables/2019

Download this table Table 11b: Age-standardised mortality rate for selected leading causes of death6, per 100,000 people, Wales, deaths registered in December 2020 and year to date compared with the five-year average

.xls .csv

Further breakdown of 2020 mortality data by leading cause and selected ICD-10 codes will be available once data have been finalised. This will be available in our Deaths Registered Series in July 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.

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