FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3322
You asked
Please supply the following information:
All statistical information that has been gathered in relation to the vaccination status of all COVID-19 related hospitalisations, intensive care admissions, intensive care casualties and fatalities, between the dates of 1 July 2021 and 1 December 2021. Or, as up to date as you are currently able to provide.
Any statistical information relating to the vaccination status of new cases of COVID-19 infection that have been discovered throughout the year of 2021.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We have produced statistical analyses on deaths by vaccination status, published in our Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status releases.
Unfortunately, we would be unable to provide any underlying datasets that we hold on deaths, vaccinations and hospitalisations as these are person level datasets, which would be disclosive. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it an offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individual businesses or persons can be identified, we find that Section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies. Section 44 is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
We do not hold analysis of hospitalisations, intensive care admissions or intensive care casualties by vaccination status. Our data on hospital episodes is obtained from the Hospital Episode Statistics published by NHS Digital with an approximately 3 month delay. We only use this data to determine pre-existing conditions and general health of individuals, therefore we do not hold analysis on recent hospitalisations due to COVID-19. NHS Digital may be better placed to assist with your query, they can be contacted at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.
The information you have requested regarding COVID-19 infections by vaccination status is available from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in their weekly COVID-19 surveillance reports. The relevant figure is on page 36 (23 December 2021, week 51).
Data for previous surveillance time periods can be found in the back series of surveillance reports at the same link. Please pay attention to the note accompanying the figures. In the context of very high vaccine coverage in the population, even with a highly effective vaccine, it is expected that a large proportion of cases, hospitalisations and deaths would occur in vaccinated individuals, simply because a larger proportion of the population are vaccinated than unvaccinated and no vaccine is 100% effective. Please also note that the figures are weekly cases rather than daily.
For more information about the impact on hospitalisations, infection, vaccine effectiveness and mortality, 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 Statistic (ONS) and other sources can be found in our Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights tool.