FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3253
You asked
Please provide the same data for the above publications but include the exact dates of dose 1 and dose 2 together with the date of death.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Our publication "Deaths by Vaccination Status" gives weekly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status where the vaccination status of the population is defined as the vaccination status on the last day of the week, or on the date of death if a death occurred during that week. We define vaccination status relative to the date of death, rather than the date of infection, because in addition to deaths involving COVID-19, we also produce data for non-COVID-19 and all cause mortality, where the infection data is not relevant.
The vaccination status for the weekly mortality rates can be one of:
- unvaccinated
- received only the first dose, less than 21 days ago
- received only the first dose, at least 21 days ago
- received the second dose
The two first dose categories allow for the increase in protection in the first few weeks after vaccination. There is only one category for the second dose due to low numbers of deaths involving COVID-19 in some weeks, in line with our disclosure policy.
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) publish data that could help answer your enquiry. They publish a weekly surveillance report which looks at the impact on hospitalisations, infection, vaccine effectiveness and COVID-19 mortality. They can be contacted on InformationRights@UKHSA.gov.uk.
The UKHSA weekly surveillance report includes numbers of COVID-19 deaths (defined as a death within 28 or 60 days of a positive COVID-19 test) for 4 week periods, by vaccination status, where vaccination status is defined relative to the infection date, rather than the date of death as for the ONS releases on deaths by vaccination status.
Unfortunately, we would be unable to provide you data on the exact dates of dose 1 and dose 2 together with the date of death. Whilst we hold information on deaths and receive data on vaccinations from the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS), we do not hold any analysis on this data other than that published in our "Deaths by vaccination status" releases. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement including complex data linkage and analysis of the mortality data and vaccinations data from the NIMS in order to create a bespoke analysis or table. 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.
In addition, publishing the exact dates of dose 1 and dose 2 together with the date of death would pose a disclosure risk as there would be low numbers of people with particular combinations of these variables. Therefore, we would be unable to release this.