You asked
I recently made a FOI request to Public Health England as follows:
'On your coronavirus dashboard it states in the section regarding deaths: 'The actual cause of death may not be Covid-19 in all cases.'
I'm writing to request the figures for the number of people who've died where Covid-19 was the actual cause of death.'
They responded as follows:
'Public Health England can confirm it does not hold information in the way you have specified. Under Section 16 of the FOI Act, public authorities have a duty to provide advice and assistance.
Additionally, you may wish to contact the Office of National Statistics who may be able to assist you further.'
Please could you confirm if you hold the data I am asking for?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the provision of mortality statistics for England and Wales. 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.
The following publication, Deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia, England and Wales: deaths occurring between 1 January and 31 August 2020, reported that between 1 January and 31 August 2020, 52,327 deaths in England and Wales involved COVID-19. Out of these, 48,168 (92.0%) deaths were due to COVID-19: that is, COVID-19 was the underlying cause. This was 12.4% of all deaths for the period (389,835 deaths).
Within our new publication, Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales, of the 39,827 deaths registered in September 2020 in England, 1.7% (690 deaths) involved the coronavirus (COVID-19). In Wales, 1.3% of the 2,610 deaths registered in September involved COVID-19 (35 deaths). In most cases (92.0% in England and 89.7% in Wales) where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, it was found to be the underlying cause of death.
This publication will be updated on 19 November 2020 to include October deaths.