You asked
FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3134
Please supply the ONS estimate of deaths of people across the UK who died from/with COVID from March 2020 to the date of this request (22 October 2021). I would like the data to be presented as deaths of people with positive COVID tests (e.g., within 28 days of their death) and as excess mortality (i.e., general UK excess mortality).
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
To note, we are responsible for producing mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency (NISRA) and National Records Scotland (NRS) are responsible for collation of their mortality statistics.
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. This differs to the data published on the GOV.UK website which are counts of all causes of death where a positive test for COVID-19 has been confirmed.
We do not hold information on when the test was conducted as this is not recorded on the death certificate. 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.
UK COVID-19 figures
We have collaborated to produce UK headline deaths involving COVID-19 as part of our Deaths Registered Weekly publication, in collaboration with NISRA and NRS. The latest data available is week ending 29 October 2021.
The number of deaths involving COVID-19, including all causes registered by week, UK, week ending 8 January 2021 to week ending 29 October 2021 can be found here.
UK deaths involving COVID-19 figures for 2020 can be found in the 2020 edition of the Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales. Please see the 'UK - Covid-19 - Weekly reg' tab.
England and Wales deaths
Please see table 12 of our monthly mortality analysis for deaths in England and Wales, where the underlying cause of death was coded to U071 and U072 (positive test / suspected COVID-19). Figures from table 12 below:
- England: U07.1, March 2020 to September 2021 – 120,563
- England: U07.2, March 2020 to September 2021 – 3780
- Wales: U07.1, March 2020 to September 2021 – 6909
- Wales: U07.2, March 2020 to September 2021 – 358
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.