You asked
I would like the number of deaths solely from COVID-19 for UK from 1st January, 2020 to 1st January, 2021, and the number of deaths from flu or common cold in the same period.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The mortality data published by ONS are derived from the formal process of death registration for England and Wales only. For Scotland and Northern Ireland statistics please contact National Records Scotland and NISRA respectively.
Deaths due to COVID-19 with no underlying cause 2020
Deaths from COVID-19 may include cases where the doctor completing the death certificate diagnosed possible cases of COVID-19, for example, where this was based on relevant symptoms but no test for the virus was conducted. Deaths with a positive test are coded using the ICD10 code U0.71 and those with suspected COVID-19 but no test has been conducted are coded with ICD10 U0.72.
ONS have been producing Pre-existing conditions of people whose death was recorded with an underlying cause of COVID-19, this dataset can be found in section 8 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 quarter of 2021 that were due to COVID-19.
Please see 'table 1a, row 28 (2020) 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+. There was a total of 9,400 deaths in England and Wales 2020 that were due to COVID-19 and were recorded without any pre-existing conditions.
2020 influenza and pneumonia mortality data
We do not hold figures published exactly as you have requested for Influenza. Figure 2 of our deaths registered weekly bulletin shows the number of deaths from 2020 up to 25th June due to Influenza and Pneumonia and the number of deaths involving Influenza and Pneumonia. "Due to" refers only to deaths where Influenza and Pneumonia was recorded as the underlying cause of death and "involving" referring to deaths that had Influenza and Pneumonia mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not. Please see the 'download data' option at the bottom of Figure 2 for these statistics.,
This figure also contains weekly figures deaths due to and involving COVID-19. I have summed the weekly totals for you for 2020. Please note, these deaths are based on where influenza and pneumonia were mentioned on the death certificate but may have been recorded with other contributing factors:
- Deaths involving Influenza and Pneumonia (underlying or secondary cause): 111,957
- Deaths due to Influenza and Pneumonia (underlying cause): 20,523
- Deaths involving COVID-19 (underlying or secondary cause): 80,830
Deaths due to COVID-19 (underlying cause): 73,444
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.