You asked
What are the recorded number of COVID-19 deaths in the year 2020 that had a positive COVID test (of any test type) within 28 days of that death?
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the provision of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
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. This differs to the data published on the GOV.UK website which are counts of all causes of death where a positive test for COVID-19 has been confirmed.
We do not have access to data on when the test was conducted as this is not recorded on the death certificate. 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.
Figure 2 of our Deaths registered weekly bulletin shows the number of deaths due to COVID-19 and the number of deaths involving COVID-19 with "due to" referring only to deaths where COVID-19 was recorded as the underlying cause of death and "involving" referring to deaths that had COVID-19 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.
Here are the summed totals for COVID-19 up to week ending 19 February 2021:
- Deaths involving COVID-19 (underlying or secondary cause): 128,077
- Deaths due to COVID-19 (underlying cause): 115,574
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.