Adverse reactions and deaths due to COVID-19 vaccines for England and Wales

You asked

1. I would like to request the number of people who have suffered adverse reactions to all the COVID-19 vaccines since the rollout of said vaccines.
2. Can you please provide the total number of deaths in England & Wales, for any reason, within 28 days of the person having received a dose of one of the Covid-19 vaccines, from all vaccine manufacturers; (AstraZeneca/Pfizer/Moderna).
3. Can you please provide the total number of deaths in England & Wales,  of all persons that have died, that have received a dose of one of the Covid-19 vaccine,  from all vaccine manufacturers; (AstraZeneca/Pfizer/Moderna).

Please provide the information available from the date of the first vaccine (8/12/2020) to today (06/6/2021).

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

COVID-19 Vaccination deaths

You can find the number of deaths involving COVID-19 (not restricted to first, second or within 28 days of vaccination) in table 12 of our Monthly Mortality Analysis dataset, these include figures for deaths involving adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccination. There are currently 3 deaths registered with the aligning ICD codes for this. However, should this change, they will be updated in this table. This publication is due to be updated in July 2021.

Deaths within a period of time after vaccination

This information requires complex analysis linking vaccination records to death registrations. We are working on analysis on all aspects of the relationship between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality, which will be published in June. Once we have finalised these plans a publication date will be announced on our Release Calendar.

As such, this information 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. Furthermore, 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 can find figures published by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here.

Adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccine

Unfortunately, we do have access to information on adverse reactions or vaccine injury and consider this information not held.

Please contact the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).