FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4117
You asked
1. Could you please supply me with figures from March 2021 - March 2022 for people with long covid broken down between; vaccinated, unvaccinated and covid breakthroughs/re infections.
2. Could you please supply me with figures from March 2021 - March 2022 for people testing positive with covid broken down between; vaccinated, unvaccinated and covid breakthroughs/re infections.
3. Could you please supply me with figures from March 2021 - March 2022 for people with covid on their death certificates broken down between; vaccinated, unvaccinated and covid breakthroughs/re infections.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Long COVID-19
We hold the following analysis for Long COVID Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK.
We also hold the following analysis Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination and self-reported long COVID in the UK which Estimates of the association between coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination and self-reported long COVID in people infected prior to vaccination, using data from the UK Coronavirus Infection Survey.
Unfortunately, we would be unable to provide you with your requested data. Determining first infection versus reinfection status would require linkage of CIS responses to genetic sequencing results and swabs collected in Test and Trace, and then a ruleset would need to be developed to group positive tests into infection episodes and assign these to COVID-19 variants. This would require a high level of statistical skill and judgement to create a bespoke analysis or table. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held.
COVID-19 positive testing
The COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) is a household survey that estimates the number of people testing positive for infection and for antibodies in the UK. Our statistics refer to the number of current COVID-19 infections within the population living in private residential households. We exclude those in hospitals, care homes and/or other communal establishments. In communal establishments, rates of COVID-19 infection are likely to be different.
You can find our most recent count and estimated rate of reinfections from the survey on tab 5a in the dataset which accompanies the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, characteristics of people testing positive for COVID-10, UK: 30 March 2022. Please note, the data covers the period from 2 July 2020 to 20 March 2022. More detailed methodological information about reinfections can be found in our reinfections technical article.
You might also be interested in the UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency, previously Public Health England) weekly national Influenza and COVID-19 surveillance report (14 April 2022). On page 13 of the report, you will find the total count of possible reinfections in England from the beginning of the pandemic up to 31 March 2022 from the government testing programme. Please note, these counts may not include all reinfections that occurred during the pandemic. You can find more information regarding the categorisation of reinfections in page 12 of the report. For further information about this data, you can contact UKHSA via email at informationrights@ukhsa.gov.uk.
The information you have requested regarding the number of people with COVID-19 by vaccination status is available from the UKHSA COVID-19 vaccine weekly surveillance reports. The most recent figures are on page 41 of the 31 March 2022, week 13 report. Data from previous surveillance time periods can be found in the back series of surveillance reports at the same link. Please note, the first report on covid cases by vaccine status was dated 30 September 2021 and the most recent report was dated 31 March 2022, and therefore does not cover the full period in your request. For more information about this data, you can contact UKHSA via email at informationrights@ukhsa.gov.uk.
Further information and an overview of data about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and other sources can be found in our Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights tool.
COVID-19 deaths by vaccine status
We have published monthly data up to the end of January 2022 in our last deaths by vaccination status publication. The data can be found in Table 8 of our Deaths by vaccination status, England dataset. There have been 20,340 deaths involving COVID-19 (ICD10 codes U07.1 or U-7.2 anywhere on the death certificate) of vaccinated people (received at least 1 vaccination dose) and 7,630 deaths involving COVID-19 of people who were unvaccinated, between 1 March 2021 and 31 January 2022.
These figures depend on the number of people who are vaccinated. These figures are provisional and are based on date of death for deaths registered by 16 February 2022.
The data for February and March 2022 will be published in our update to the deaths by vaccination status publication on 16 May 2022.
We have not published data on the number of COVID-19 deaths from those who have been reinfected. We do not hold data that shows the number of times people have been infected with COVID-19 and so we would be unable to provide any accurate breakdown of deaths by infection status.
However, UKHSA do hold and publish information for COVID-19 infections in the COVID-19 vaccine weekly surveillance reports (weeks 39 to 16, 2021 to 2022). They may possibly be able to help you with this aspect of your query.