FOI Ref: FOI/2021/2801
You asked
Please supply the following information:
1) Percentage of hospital admissions due to COVID-19 symptoms for vaccinated people versus non-vaccinated people
2) Death rate from COVID-19 complications in vaccinated people versus non vaccinated people. It would be great to know if you have this subgruped by cause of death (ie VTE, respiratory failure, etc).
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately, we do not hold the requested analysis regarding hospital admissions and vaccinations. In order to provide the analysis requested, we would be required to create complex bespoke analysis. Public authorities are not obligated to create information in order to answer requests. Further information on hospitalisations and vaccination uptake is produced by Public Health England (PHE) and published via the government's COVID-19 dashboard, which may be helpful.
You can find the number of deaths involving adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccination in table 12 of our Monthly Mortality Analysis dataset. There are currently 4 deaths registered with the aligning ICD-10 codes for this (U12.9). Should this figure change, they will be updated in this table. The latest data available is July 2021. This publication is due to be updated with data for August in September 2021.
We are currently working on analysis on a number of aspects of the relationship between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality, including:
- Information regarding deaths after 28 days of vaccination, from any cause.- Information regarding deaths involving or due to COVID-19 after receiving COVID-19 vaccination.
This requires complex analysis linking vaccination records to death registrations. The release of the findings of this ongoing programme of research prior to completion would jeopardise the research project by potentially putting misleading data into the public domain, as the analysis would not be complete nor quality assured. In turn, this would harm our reputation as a producer of reliable, quality-assured, official statistics. If we were to release inaccurate or misleading data regarding this topic, the trust that the government and the public place in our research and statistics could be severely undermined, which would directly jeopardise our functions.
Therefore, the requested information is exempt under Section 22A (b)(i) and (b)(iii), whereby the information requested was obtained in the course of conducting an ongoing programme of research, which we have a view to publish, and release prior to our planned schedule would prejudice the research programme itself and the organisation conducting the research.
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, which requires time and space. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data, which is not in the public interest. This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when the accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before. This is particularly important given the public health implications of data surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines.
The provisional release date for these publications is September 2021. Once publication dates are finalised, they will be announced on our Release Calendar.
The provisional release date for these publications is 13 September 2021. Once publication dates are finalised, they will be announced on our Release Calendar.
If you have any further enquiries, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.