You asked

I can see a previous request:

"Please provide the number of deaths where the sole cause of death was COVID-19 with no underlying medical health issues. Please also provide the number of people who have died from with no underlying health conditions."

Would it be possible to please have this information updated, as we are already in November and the deaths listed are 46717, so the number of deaths where the sole cause of death was COVID-19 would be required. Your previous response indicated that only 9.6% of the deaths at the time of response had a sole cause of death as COVID. (9.6% of 46717 is 4485)

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We have been producing the following publication in the response to COVID-19: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales. Tables 5, 6a, 6b, and 6c of this publication provide COVID-19 death figures broken down by underlying health condition in England and Wales between March and June 2020. Please also see the following information, showing the number and percentage of deaths with and without pre-existing health conditions from March to June 2020.

We define a pre-existing condition here as the last health condition mentioned on the first part of the death certificate when it came before the coronavirus (COVID-19) or was an independent contributory factor in the death, mentioned in part II.

COVID-19 deaths with no underlying health condition

Figures for COVID-19 deaths with no underlying health conditions are available on Table 5, this means where no other underlying condition was listed on the death certificate.

  • No pre-existing condition: England and Wales – 4476
  • No pre-existing condition: England – 4169
  • No pre-existing condition: Wales – 294

We are no longer publishing monthly: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales. This is due to the decrease in the number of COVID-19 related deaths. Therefore, in order to provide COVID deaths with no underlying for July to November 2020, we would need create analysis. 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.

However, you can find provisional monthly death registration data for England and Wales, broken down by sex, age and country are now available in this monthly publication: Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales. This publication contains data from July onwards and includes deaths due to COVID-19 and leading causes of death.

If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.