You asked
In relation to the published deaths registered in England and Wales, provisional from 23 March 2020 to 06 May 2020, or to the latest date available to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) if it differs from this date, what statistical error does the ONS apply to the deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
This request is made in light of the publicly available studies, reports and articles relating to the inaccuracies of the RT-PCR tests used to determine presence of COVID-19 and the lack of a positive test result being required to enable COVID-19 to be added as a cause or probable cause of death on a Certification of Death (also referred to as Death Certificate).
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for publishing mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales, using the information supplied on a death certificate. We do not obtain data on whether the deceased was previously tested for Covid-19. Therefore, our statistics are solely driven by the data recorded within the death certificate.
We publish deaths registered weekly in England and Wales and Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board which includes figures for deaths by all respiratory diseases and COVID19. The most recent publication available is for week ending 15th May 2020. We publish provisional weekly death registrations 11 days after the death. This is to allow time for the death to be registered, but also to allow time for accurate coding of the health conditions mentioned on the death certificate, so there will be a difference in counts between occurrence and registration.
The provisional figures indicate the number of deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned. Covid-19 is recorded on the death certificate as follows:
- Where there was a positive test result, or the certifying doctor was satisfied that the disease was COVID-19 based on symptoms or clinical findings, we record the ICD-10 code U07.1
- If the doctor was not certain of the diagnosis, they can write "suspected COVID-19" or "possible COVID-19" and we record the ICD-10 code U07.2
If COVID is mentioned as either cause of death or a mention on the death certificate (not necessarily cause of death or tested but was deemed present by a doctor) then it would be reported as a COVID death.
The lower and upper confidence limits are provided within our quarterly mortality surveillance statistics. These form a confidence interval, which is a measure of the statistical precision of an estimate and shows the range of uncertainty around the estimated figure. Calculations based on small numbers of events are often subject to random fluctuations. If the confidence interval around one figure overlaps with the interval around another, we cannot say with certainty that there is more than a chance difference between the two figures.
Further information can be found in our user guide to mortality statistics and or QMI methodology via the following links:
Public Health England may be better placed to answer your questions regarding Testing, as we do not have access to this data. They can be contacted via their COVID-19 enquiry email address: wn_coronavirus@phe.gov.uk.
If you would like to discuss any of these points further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.