You asked
Please provide data on the number of death certificates which list COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death during each week of 2020 up to the end of May in England and Wales.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Our mortality data is taken from the information on death certificates. The following publication, Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales: deaths occurring in May 2020, provides the number of deaths registered each month in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region.
There were 46,687 deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) that occurred between 1 March and 31 May 2020 registered up to 6 June 2020 in England and Wales; of these, 43,763 had COVID-19 assigned as the underlying cause of death.
Between 1 March and 31 May 2020, there were 180,586 deaths that occurred in England and Wales and were registered by 6 June 2020. A quarter of these deaths (25.9%) involved the coronavirus (COVID-19) (46,687 deaths). The doctor certifying a death can list all causes in the chain of events that led to the death and pre-existing conditions that may have contributed to the death. Using this information, we determine an underlying cause of death. More information on this process can be found in our user guide. In the majority of cases (43,763 deaths, 93.7%) when COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, it was found to be the underlying cause of death.
Our definition of COVID-19 includes some cases where the certifying doctor suspected the death involved COVID-19 but was not certain, for example, because no test was done. Of the 43,763 deaths with an underlying cause of COVID-19, 3,622 (8.3%) were classified as "suspected" COVID-19. Including mentions, "suspected" COVID-19 was recorded on 8.7% of all deaths involving COVID-19
This publication will be updated with June data on 17th July 2020.
Unfortunately, we would not be able to provide you with the above data broken down by week. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create a bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held.
However, we can provide the following data, broken down by week:
The following publication, Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 26 June 2020, provides provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available.
Our Customise my Data service will also provide further variations of this data:
Customise my data Weekly deaths by Local authority and place of death
Customise my data Weekly deaths by age and sex
If you have any further enquiries, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk