FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3221
You asked
Please supply your current (as of 15 November 2021] definition to report a death as being caused by the covid virus.
What criteria must be met in order for you to include the death as Covid in your statistics?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry regarding COVID-19 deaths.
Our data is derived from information collected at the point of death registration.
When a person dies, in most cases a doctor writes a medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) which is then recorded in the death registration (at a local authority registration office). The details are printed out as the official 'death certificate' for the next of kin. The same information is sent electronically from the registration office to us to produce statistics about causes of death. For some deaths, such as when the death was due to an accident or violence, there is a coroner's inquest to establish the facts and the coroner then decides the cause of death and sends their findings to the local registrar.
When we say that a death 'involved' COVID-19, we mean that COVID-19 was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, possibly along with other health conditions, not necessarily as the underlying cause of death. When we say that a death was 'due to' COVID-19, we mean that COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death, because it was either the only health condition mentioned on the death certificate, or it was the one that started the train of events leading to death.
If a doctor thinks the death involved COVID-19 but is not sure, they can include it, along with words like 'possible' or 'suspected'. We code these differently, so we know what proportion of COVID-19 deaths only suspected cases are - in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) COVID-19 confirmed by positive test has the code U07.1 and suspected COVID-19 has the code U07.2.
We publish provisional deaths involving COVID-19 in our Deaths Registered Weekly in England and Wales publication. From 2 January 2021 to the latest data available 26 November 2021 there have been 71,532 deaths registered involving COVID-19 and 62,936 deaths registered due to COVID-19.
2020 data
We hold the following analysis of Deaths due to COVID-19, registered in England and Wales: 2020. There were 81,795 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2020 which involved COVD19, of which 73,766 were designated to be due to COVID-19.
In our monthly mortality analysis publication, we publish a rolling total of COVID-19 deaths by ICD-10 split. As of the October analysis, which is the latest available, of the 134,375 deaths due to COVID-19, 4,139 (3.1%) were classified as "suspected" COVID-19. Including all 151,574 deaths involving COVID-19, "suspected" COVID-19 was recorded on 3.1% (4,763 deaths) of all deaths involving COVID-19 in England and Wales. For more information on the ICD-10 definition of COVID-19, see Section 8 of the methodology article.
For further information please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.