FOI Reference: FOI/2022/3881
You asked
How many people have died of Flu over the past 2 years?
We said
Thank you for your request.
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.
2020
We have published annual mortality data available by cause for the years 2013-2020, this is available as part of our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice. Influenza is coded under J09-J11. Please see the following instruction for using this service:
- Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).
- Select Age - All ages or 5 year age bands.
- Select Gender - Total or Male/Female
- Select rates - All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.
- Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available). J09-J11
- Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
| Country | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Total mortality | 511 |
| England | 483 |
| Wales | 27 |
| England and Wales | 510 |
| Resident outside England and Wales | 1 |
Download this table Figures for deaths due to influenza in 2020
.xls .csv2021
We have not yet produced analysis on influenza deaths for 2021. 2021 figures are still provisional and subject to change. This is to allow inclusion of late registrations which are deaths which have been referred for Coroner investigation.
As such, influenza mortality information for 2021 is 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.