You asked
I note that the interactive map has not been updated for a couple of weeks and that your website is a little out of kilt with the real world. I also note that you do not have an expected date to update the figures. Please provide the following:
The numbers dying from COVID-19 (those registered at hospitals, car homes, home, and medical professionals recording deaths associated with Covid-19) broken down by county and location within the United Kingdom, as the production of the answer is not from today's date.
Are the figures per date of reported death or date of actual death?
An up-to-date figure of the measure of the number of people who have died in the UK compared to the five-year average for this period.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics in England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for publishing the number of deaths registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Please see the answers to your questions below:
1. Please provide the numbers dying from COVID-19 (those registered at hospitals, care homes, home, and medical professionals recording deaths associated with Covid-19) broken down by county and location within the United Kingdom, as of the production of the answer is not from today's date on your interactive map.
Please see the following publication: Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board. This provides weekly deaths in hospitals, care homes, private homes, hospices and other communal establishments at Local Authority level. This bulletin is published every Tuesday.
Our Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation: deaths occurring between 1 March and 31 May 2020 publication, which includes the interactive map, is updated on a monthly basis. The next publication is provisionally scheduled for 17 July 2020.
We would be unable to provide you with more up-to-date figures than those in the above publications in response to your request. This information is regarded as exempt according to Section 22 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.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. Whilst we recognise the desirability of information being freely available, we also acknowledge that public authorities must have the freedom to be able to determine their own publication timetables. This allows them to deal with the necessary preparation, administration, and context of publication. Furthermore, public interest is best served through the public having confidence that the information published by ONS is accurate and final. Release on an ad-hoc basis would not achieve this aim and will cause unnecessary confusion if they were to be misrepresented. In this case, exempting the information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
Please see the following explanation for delays in our interactive map output:
Producing data by IMD is a time-consuming process. The extraction of the code for this publication cannot be done so quickly, and this is before we even begin the data analysis. We also have numerous COVID-19 outputs, in addition to our regular data outputs. Our weekly death registrations output remains the most up to date publication, taking into account the 11-day lag for registration. This is the time taken for the death to be certified, registered by the family (which can take up to 5 days) and then processed by General Register Office and sent to us for coding.
2. Are the figures per date of reported death or date of actual death?
The above publication includes data both by date of registration and date of death (occurrences).
3. Please provide an up-to-date figure of the measure of the number of people who have died in the UK compared to the five-year average for this period.
Please see the following publication: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 3 July 2020. There is a comparison of deaths in 2020 with the 5-year average on Table 1.
Also, please see the following User Requested Data Sets, which will also provide a 5-year average (2015-2019), which may be of use to you:
Please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk if you require any further information.