FOI Ref: FOI/2022/4436
You asked
Please tell me how many deaths there have been since December 2020 until now in the UK.
Also, can you please tell me how many people died after having 1 or more COVID-19 vaccinations during the same time period.
Also, can you please tell me how many people died of COVID-19 (not with covid) as their only cause of death within the same time period.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Please see the following previously answered FOI, which provides information about the total number of deaths in the UK and in England and Wales only: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/annualukmortalitystatistics2000tojuly2022
Deaths by vaccination status
We hold the following analysis Deaths by vaccination status, England - Office for National Statistics which provides Age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), non-COVID-19 deaths and all deaths by vaccination status, broken down by age group.
The data are for England only, as vaccinations data for Wales is not yet available to be linked to the mortality dataset and the PHDA covers England only. Therefore, we consider data for Wales as information not held.
This is the latest data available with an updated publication due for release in late 2022. The next publication date will be announced on our Release Calendar.
Please note this data does not include deaths attributed to adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccination.
Deaths which include adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccination as either the underlying cause or contributory mention are recorded in table 12 as part of our Monthly Mortality Analysis .
Deaths due to COVID-19
Deaths where COVID-19 is the underlying cause of death and not a contributory mention are reported in our Monthly Mortality analysis in England and Wales for 2022.
We also have published Deaths due to COVID-19, registered in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) which holds data for 2020 and 2021.
Health conditions are recorded on the death certificate only if the certifying doctor or coroner believed they made some contribution to the death, direct or indirect. The death certificate does not include all health conditions from which the deceased might have suffered if they were not considered relevant.
The death certificate (Annex A (PDF, 224KB)) used in England and Wales is compatible with that recommended by WHO. It is set out in two parts. Part I gives the condition or sequence of conditions leading directly to death, while Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death but are not part of the causal sequence.
We recommend using our pre-existing conditions methodology to answer this question as it removes any conditions caused by the underlying cause of death.
We define pre-existing conditions as those mentioned in Part 2 of the medical certificate of cause of death. If COVID-19 is mentioned in Part 1 on lines above other conditions also mentioned in Part 1, the last condition mentioned in Part 1 is also considered a pre-existing condition. We don't know exactly how many people who died from COVID-19 had no pre-existing health conditions, only how many did not have a pre-existing condition mentioned on the death certificate. A contributor to the cause of death is expected to have increased the likelihood of death, but this does not mean that the death would have been avoided in its absence.
We would also recommend reading our recent blog on this subject: To say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading
We hold analysis showing deaths due to COVID-19 with no pre-existing conditions by broad age-band in England and Wales in the following publication: Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales. This is published quarterly within the Monthly Mortality Analysis publication.
If the datasets in this response do not meet your needs, we can create a custom data set including 2020/2021 data and provisional 2022 data. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data are available to order from the HALE Customer Services team. Please note, this services is subject to disclosure controls, legal frameworks, resources and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy. To access this service please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.