You asked
If a person who has tested positive for covid completes suicide are they classed as a covid death in the covid deaths statistics?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
If someone dies in circumstances involving an accident, violence or suspicious circumstances, the case is referred to a coroner for investigation. A post-mortem examination is carried out and usually an inquest is held. The Coroner's Court hears all the evidence and follows legal rules of evidence when deciding the causes of death. It is extremely unlikely that a coroner would find that someone was involved in a traffic accident, or was the victim of violence, because of having COVID-19 or a positive COVID-19 test -- so they would not mention COVID-19 on the death certificate. This applies to any death caused by an accident, violence, poisoning, or other external causes.
Even if in an unusual case a death certificate mentioned both COVID-19 and a traffic accident (or other external causes), the World Health Organisation (WHO) rules for coding deaths mean that the traffic accident or suicide would be identified as the underlying cause of death in our data.
You can read in detail about the coding of causes of death and identifying the underlying cause in the ONS User guide to mortality statistics and the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) instruction manual.