FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3252
You asked
Please release the underlying raw data on a weekly basis going forward for public consumption. Also, please provide the data from 8th Dec 2020, not 8th Jan 2021.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We published weekly counts of deaths, population and age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status in our most recent publication on this topic, "Deaths involving COVID-19 by Vaccination Status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 24 September 2021".
Unfortunately we are unable to release underlying raw data for the publications outlined in your request. This is consistent with the disclosure control methodology used for deaths. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) which renders it an offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individual businesses or persons can be identified, we find that Section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies. Section 44 is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
In our next publication on this topic, we plan to include further age breakdowns of the data to allow analysis by narrower age bands, for monthly data, which may help answer your request.
Analysis is provided for 2021 to date in our Deaths by Vaccinations Status publications. Comparatively few vaccinations were administered in 2020, therefore we do not include these weeks but start our analysis in 2021, when second doses were also being administered and when people were beginning to enter the "greater than 21 days since first dose" vaccination state. People vaccinated in 2020 are still included in the appropriate vaccination category, but we do not analyse mortality rates in these weeks. Information on the numbers of vaccinated administered can be found on the Government dashboard.