FOI/2021/2693

You asked

Please supply the number of death certificates that have been issued with COVID-19 being listed as the cause of death from 1 January 2020 to 1 June 2021.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Latest information on deaths involving COVID-19 is available in the following publication: provisional weekly deaths. This publication includes deaths 'due to' COVID-19 (where it was recorded as the underlying cause of death) and deaths 'involving' COVID-19 (where it was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate).  

Please note, the week dates in this publication run from a Saturday to Friday and figures are published 11 days after a week ends. Therefore, the figures below are for deaths registered between week ending 3 January 2020 to week ending 4 June 2021.

Between week ending 3 January 2020 (Week 01 2020) to week ending 4 June 2021 (Week 22 2021), there were 123,774 deaths due to COVID-19 and 138,465 deaths involving COVID-19.

These figures cannot be added together because deaths due to COVID-19 are included in the total number of deaths involving COVID-19. You can find a breakdown of these figures for 2021 in our main weekly deaths tabulations, available here.  Data for 2020 is available here.  

We also publish numbers of deaths where COVID-19 was recorded as the sole condition; that is deaths where COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death and no contributory cause was mentioned on the death certificate. These data are available in the following analysis: Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales publication. This publication also includes deaths involving COVID-19 by main pre-existing condition, up to June 2021.

If you have any further questions about this information, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.