Covid-19 deaths broken down by Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

FOI Response: FOI/2022/4303

You asked

Please provide the following breakdowns for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:

• Total deaths from COVID-19 that were a direct result of COVID-19 where COVID was the cause of death.

• Total deaths where COVID-19 was a contributing factor to death of an individual.

Please provide the following breakdowns for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:

• Total deaths from COVID-19 amongst healthy individuals that have no known underlying health conditions

• Total deaths from COVID-19 amongst individuals that have known underlying health conditions

Please provide the following breakdowns for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:

• Breakdown of deaths from COVID-19 for each age group -- Ages through 0 -- 100. (Note this is specific ages and not age ranges.) Table below for reference on how the date is to be presented

Please provide the following breakdowns for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:

• Breakdown of deaths from COVID-19 for each age group -- Ages through 0 -- 100. In this data please also capture those that had no known underlying health conditions and those with Known underlying health conditions (Note this is specific ages and not age ranges.) Table below for reference on how the date is to be presented

Please provide the following breakdowns for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:

• Total deaths from COVID-19 amongst healthy individuals that have no known underlying health conditions and have received their COVID-19 vaccinations. Please provide the data in the below format: Vaccination 1 Number of deaths due to COVID-19 after 1st vaccination

1. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 after 1st vaccination

2. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 after 2nd vaccination Booster vaccination

1. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 after booster vaccination 1 Booster vaccination

2. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 after 2nd vaccination

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. 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.

COVID-19 deaths in Wales - due to and involving

For 2020 and 2021 data we hold the following analysis Deaths due to COVID-19, registered in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). We use the term "due to COVID-19" when referring only to deaths with an underlying cause of death as COVID-19 and we use the term "involving COVID-19" when referring to deaths that had COVID-19 mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.

Deaths due to COVID-19 with no pre-existing conditions in Wales

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. Table 4 of the publication shows Welsh data for those with no pre-existing conditions.  This is updated quarterly within our Monthly Mortality Analysis publication.

We have not conducted analysis of specific pre-existing conditions with deaths due to COVID-19 in Wales. We do hold the data for England and Wales within the above publication.

We can produce Wales only data for you as a bespoke request.  Please see paragraph below which explains our bespoke data request service.

Deaths due to COVID-19 in Wales by single year of age and deaths by single year of age with and without pre-existing conditions

We hold the following analysis for England and Wales Single year of age and average age of death of people whose death was due to or involved COVID-19 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) but have not completed analysis of Wales only data.

If you would like to request this data, we may be able to produce deaths by single year of age in Wales as a bespoke request. Please see paragraph below which explains our bespoke data request service.

For COVID-19 deaths with and without pre-existing conditions in Wales by single year of age, we have not published this analysis. This is due to disclosure controls which prohibit the publication of identifiable data. We would be unable to provide COVID-19 deaths by specific condition and single year of age due to our Policy on protecting confidentiality in tables of birth and death statistics.

Deaths by vaccination status in Wales

We do not hold this data; our Public Health Data Asset holds English data only. Therefore, we consider this information not held. Stats Wales may be better placed to answer your enquiry. They can be contacted on stats.info.desk@gov.wales or telephone on 0300 025 5050

ONS Bespoke data request service

You can request custom data sets through our Making a request service which is out with the Freedom of Information Act scheme. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order from the HALE customer services team. These are subject to disclosure control, legal frameworks, resources and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy.

If you would like to access this service and request a quote, please contact the HALE Customer Services team on Health.Data@ons.gov.uk