You asked
Could you please tell me how many actual deaths from Covid alone with no underlying conditions for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the provision of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS), Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), and Central Statistics Office (CSO) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk, info@nisra.gov.uk, and information@cso.ie respectively.
We were producing Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales in the response to COVID-19. This publication provides the number of deaths where COVID-19 was recorded as the sole condition on the death certificate from March to 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".
According to this publication, 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 – 4476
- No pre-existing condition: England – 4169
- No pre-existing condition: Wales – 294
We are currently reassessing this publication and will be releasing an update soon, analysing data from July onwards.
As such, data showing deaths caused by COVID-19 showing no pre-existing health conditions from July to December 2020 in England and Wales 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.
You may also find the following information of interest:
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.
Figure 2 of our Deaths registered weekly bulletin shows the number of deaths due to COVID-19 and the number of deaths involving COVID-19, with "due to" referring only to deaths where COVID-19 was recorded as the underlying cause of death and "involving" referring to deaths that had COVID-19 mentioned anywhere on the death certificate. Please see the download data option at the bottom of figure 2.
The total figures have been summed below for COVID-19 deaths that were registered up to week ending 8 January 2021. COVID-19 is the underlying cause of death in around 90% of deaths where it was mentioned on the death certificate. However, these figures do not exclude other secondary causes that may have contributed to a death.
- Deaths involving COVID-19 (underlying or secondary cause) - 86,887
- Deaths due to COVID-19 (underlying cause) - 78,811
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.