FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3118
You asked
Please supply the following information:
Could you please provide me with the number of deaths of under 19s for 2021 so far?
Could you then please provide me with the number of deaths of under 19s for 2020?
Could you also provide me with the five year average of under 19s deaths and what the percentage increase or decrease is compared to this year?
Could you please tell me how many deaths that have been registered since March 2020 whereby sars-cov-2 is the sole cause of death?
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is derived from death certificates in the process of death registration.
We produce mortality data by five-year age group in the 2021 weekly deaths dataset, you can see deaths by age in the 'weekly figures 2021'.
Mortality figures for 2020 by age group are available in the 2020 weekly deaths dataset. you can see deaths by age in the 'weekly figures 2020'.
We have also produced a calculation of Five year average weekly deaths by sex and age group, England and Wales: deaths occurring between 2015 and 2019. The weekly death figures in this dataset are based on the date the death occurred rather than the date the death was registered, so this is not directly comparable to the weekly deaths datasets above, but can still be used to make an estimate calculation.
We do not hold analysis of data for date of death registrations. We may be able to create this as a bespoke request for you. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate).
Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
For mortality figures where COVID-19 was the sole cause of death, please see: Pre-existing conditions of people whose death was recorded with an underlying cause of COVID-19, this dataset can be found in section 7 of the Monthly mortality analysis bulletin. This dataset provides a greater insight into the leading pre-existing cause of death groups, for deaths occurring in England and Wales, in 2020 and the first two quarters of 2021 that were due to COVID-19.
Please see 'table 1a, row 28 (2020) and row 29 (2021)' for deaths where COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause, but had no other pre-existing conditions recorded on the death certificate, England and Wales. Table 1b represents these figures for England and table 1c figures are for Wales.
This publication will be updated quarterly. COVID-19 deaths involving pre-existing conditions is split by broad age groups between 1-64 and 65+. We do not hold the mortality data split by the under 70 age-group you have requested. To fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create a bespoke analysis or table. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held.
Please see below for death registrations for 2020 and 2021 (provisional) that were due to COVID-19 and were recorded without any pre-existing conditions, England and Wales.
2020: 9400 (0-64: 1549 / 65 and over: 7851)
2021 Q1: 6483 (0-64: 1560/ 65 and over: 4923)
2021 Q2: 346 (0-64: 153/ 65 and over: 193)
If you would like to discuss this query further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.