You asked
How many people died in the UK of COVID-19 alone, with no underlying health condition?
Please can this be broken down into country, and age range?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
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. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
For January to July 2020, this information is available in our Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) publication. Table 6a shows deaths involving COVID and pre-existing conditions for ages 0-44 and then 5-year age bands after the age of 45.
We have published Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics which provides deaths from January 2020 to December 2020 by two age groups in the dataset in table 2. This is the latest data available.
| Number of PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS | January to March 2020 | April to June 2020 | July to September 2020 | October to December 2020 | January to December 2020 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over |
| 0 | 27 | 137 | 949 | 4,620 | 59 | 213 | 406 | 2,238 | 1,441 | 7,208 |
| 1 | 67 | 336 | 1,329 | 11,712 | 70 | 433 | 588 | 5,615 | 2,054 | 18,096 |
| 2 | 44 | 366 | 1,085 | 10,219 | 47 | 447 | 507 | 5,754 | 1,683 | 16,786 |
| 3 | 46 | 298 | 655 | 6,734 | 28 | 338 | 322 | 4,123 | 1,051 | 11,493 |
| 4 | 12 | 130 | 317 | 3,147 | 15 | 163 | 134 | 1,907 | 478 | 5,347 |
| 5 or more | 11 | 91 | 160 | 1,915 | 7 | 133 | 78 | 1,093 | 256 | 3,232 |
| Proportion with no pre-existing conditions | 13.0% | 10.1% | 21.1% | 12.0% | 26.1% | 12.3% | 20.0% | 10.8% | 20.7% | 11.6% |
| Mean number of pre-existing conditions | 1.92 | 2.20 | 1.70 | 1.97 | 1.55 | 2.17 | 1.73 | 2.09 | 1.71 | 2.02 |
Download this table England
.xls .csv
| Number of PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS | January to March 2020 | April to June 2020 | July to September 2020 | October to December 2020 | January to December 2020 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over | Aged 1-64 years | Aged 65 and over |
| 0 | 1 | 7 | 56 | 339 | 2 | 12 | 49 | 285 | 108 | 643 |
| 1 | 3 | 23 | 59 | 653 | 4 | 28 | 50 | 617 | 116 | 1,321 |
| 2 | 0 | 15 | 51 | 470 | 2 | 27 | 38 | 477 | 91 | 989 |
| 3 | 0 | 6 | 25 | 294 | 1 | 19 | 24 | 275 | 50 | 594 |
| 4 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 119 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 143 | 21 | 274 |
| 5 or more | 1 | 4 | 5 | 73 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 72 | 12 | 153 |
| Proportion with no pre-existing conditions | 20.00% | 12.10% | 27.10% | 17.40% | 20.00% | 12.10% | 27.80% | 15.20% | 27.10% | 16.20% |
| Mean number of pre-existing conditions | 1.8 | 1.79 | 1.49 | 1.73 | 1.5 | 2.05 | 1.5 | 1.81 | 1.5 | 1.77 |
Download this table Wales
.xls .csv2021 data will be published in May/June 2021. As such, the information you have requested is considered 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.