You asked
Please provide information on the deaths from the Coronavirus with no other underlying health conditions. Preferably in the Morecambe Bay Trust area, from February 2020 to January 2021.
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.
We are unable to provide information to you specifically for COVID-19 deaths in the Morcambe Bay Trust area with details surrounding cause of death as the figures would be too small and would therefore be considered personal information. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) 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 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.
However, under the freedom of Information Act, ONS can provide the following:
Deaths involving COVID-19 with no underlying cause
ONS have been producing Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales in the response to COVID-19. This publication provides a greater insight into the leading underlying causes of death groups for deaths occurring in England and Wales between March and 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. Where only COVID-19 was recorded on the death certificate, or COVID-19 and subsequent conditions caused by COVID-19 were recorded, we refer to these deaths as having "No pre-existing conditions".
Of the 50,335 deaths that occurred in March to June 2020 involving COVID-19 in England and Wales, 45,859 (91.1%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 4,476 (8.9%) had none. COVID-19 deaths where there was no pre-existing condition between March and June 2020 are included below, this can be found on table 5.
- No pre-existing condition: England and Wales – 4476
- No pre-existing condition: England – 4169
- No pre-existing condition: Wales – 294
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. Leading causes is also available on table 11 and includes figures for the five-year average.
We are no longer publishing monthly COVID-19 deaths with details around the death such as pre-existing conditions or no underlying cause. This publication was paused in the summer of 2020 due to the decrease in the number of deaths. These figures are now included in our Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales released on the 25 February 2021.
Deaths involving COVID-19, by local authority and health board
ONS have published Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board. In the tables labelled 'Registrations – Pivot table' and 'Occurrences – Pivot table', you can see how the mortality figures vary week on week, using the drop-down toggle and filtering on the week number and cause of death options.
For clarity: The filter/drop-down on the pivot tables for 'All-causes' does not contain COVID-19 deaths. By default, both options are ticked. If you were to untick the COVID-19 option it would deduct from the total deaths, leaving you with deaths from all other causes. Additionally, if both were ticked and you unticked All-causes, it would leave you with the total number of COVID-19 deaths.
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.