You asked
How many deaths have occurred in England from March 2020 to December 2020, as a direct consequence of Covid 19 / Coronavirus.
I would like only actual Deaths caused by the above Covid 19 / Coronavirus without ANY other underlying medical health issues/problems.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We were producing Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales in the response to COVID-19. This publication provides the number of deaths where COVID-19 was recorded as the sole condition on the death certificate from March to June 2020.
We define a pre-existing condition here as the last health condition mentioned on the first part of the death certificate when it came before the coronavirus (COVID-19) or was an independent contributory factor in the death, mentioned in part II. Where only COVID-19 was recorded on the death certificate, or COVID-19 and subsequent conditions caused by COVID-19 were recorded, we refer to these deaths as having "No pre-existing conditions".
According to this publication, of the 50,335 deaths that occurred in March to June 2020 involving COVID-19 in England and Wales, 45,859 (91.1%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 4,476 (8.9%) had none. COVID-19 deaths where there was no pre-existing condition between March and June 2020 are included below, this can be found on Table 5.
- No pre-existing condition: England and Wales – 4476
- No pre-existing condition: England – 4169
- No pre-existing condition: Wales – 294
We are currently reassessing this publication and will be releasing an update soon, analysing data from July onwards.
As such, data showing deaths caused by COVID-19 showing no pre-existing health conditions from July to December 2020 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.
Provisional monthly death registration data for England and Wales, broken down by sex, age and country are now available in this monthly publication: Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales. This publication contains data from July onwards and includes deaths due to COVID-19 and leading causes of death. Leading causes is also available on table 11 and includes figures for the five-year average.
The downloadable datafile beneath Figure 2 of the following publication, Deaths registered weekly, provides deaths due to and involving COVID-19 weekly in 2020. We use the term "due to COVID-19" when referring only to deaths where that illness was recorded as the underlying cause of death, however this may still include pre-existing health conditions. We use the term "involving COVID-19" when referring to deaths that had that illness mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, either as underlying cause or contributory factor. Please see the following table taken from this publication, which provides these figures.
| Week no. | Deaths involving COVID-19 | Deaths due to COVID-19 |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | - | - |
| Week 2 | - | - |
| Week 3 | - | - |
| Week 4 | - | - |
| Week 5 | - | - |
| Week 6 | - | - |
| Week 7 | - | - |
| Week 8 | - | - |
| Week 9 | - | - |
| Week 10 | - | - |
| Week 11 | 5 | 5 |
| Week 12 | 103 | 95 |
| Week 13 | 539 | 519 |
| Week 14 | 3,475 | 3,332 |
| Week 15 | 6,213 | 5,983 |
| Week 16 | 8,758 | 8,435 |
| Week 17 | 8,237 | 7,867 |
| Week 18 | 6,035 | 5,689 |
| Week 19 | 3,930 | 3,664 |
| Week 20 | 3,810 | 3,511 |
| Week 21 | 2,589 | 2,341 |
| Week 22 | 1,822 | 1,628 |
| Week 23 | 1,588 | 1,392 |
| Week 24 | 1,114 | 948 |
| Week 25 | 783 | 629 |
| Week 26 | 606 | 498 |
| Week 27 | 532 | 408 |
| Week 28 | 366 | 291 |
| Week 29 | 295 | 228 |
| Week 30 | 217 | 161 |
| Week 31 | 193 | 148 |
| Week 32 | 152 | 115 |
| Week 33 | 139 | 104 |
| Week 34 | 138 | 98 |
| Week 35 | 101 | 76 |
| Week 36 | 78 | 69 |
| Week 37 | 99 | 78 |
| Week 38 | 139 | 118 |
| Week 39 | 215 | 178 |
| Week 40 | 321 | 279 |
| Week 41 | 438 | 385 |
| Week 42 | 670 | 590 |
| Week 43 | 978 | 874 |
| Week 44 | 1,379 | 1,196 |
| Week 45 | 1,937 | 1,743 |
| Week 46 | 2,466 | 2,170 |
| Week 47 | 2,697 | 2,361 |
| Week 48 | 3,040 | 2,637 |
| Week 49 | 2,835 | 2,469 |
| Week 50 | 2,756 | 2,337 |
| Week 51 | 2,986 | 2,557 |
| Week 52 | 2,912 | 2,497 |
| Week 53 | 3,144 | 2,741 |
Download this table Deaths involving and due to COVID-19, England and Wales, deaths registered in 2020
.xls .csvIf you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.