You asked
I would like to know what percentage of people recover from Covid-19 and I would like to know why this information is not freely available?
We said
Thank you for your request.
The COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) is a representative household survey which tracks COVID-19 infection and immunity in the community. In this instance, community refers to private residential households and excludes institutional settings such as hospitals and care homes. We estimate the percentage of people who would have tested positive for COVID-19 at a point in time in the population by testing a representative sample of people in the UK. Participants are swabbed every week for the first 5 weeks and then every month thereafter. A sample of these participants will also have their blood tested for antibodies to COVID-19.
We are working on producing analysis which will be published as soon as available on clearance times. This analysis will provide insight into the time taken for people to swab negative on an RT-PCR test after having initially tested positive and can be a useful indication of the timeline of the infection. As such, the information you have requested 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. 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.
You may also wish to ask The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Public Health England (PHE) to see if they can assist with any further data regarding this. They can be contacted via the following contact form and email address respectively: DHSC FOI Contact Form and wn_coronavirus@phe.gov.uk.