FOI Ref: FOI/2023/4827
You asked
I would like to request the figures of COVID-19 deaths of 5-11 year olds from when COVID-19 was first announced to be in the UK (March 2020) up until the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine for non immune compromised 5-11 year olds (Feb 2022).
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is derived from information collected from the death certificate at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In collaboration with these organisations, we receive headline data regarding COVID-19 deaths from our colleagues at NISRA and NRS which is published as part of Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional output. However, we do not receive any further disaggregation such as full age disaggregation, pre-existing conditions, or contributory mentions. Therefore, we publish in grouped age bands of under 1 and 1 to 14. If you would like age disaggregation for Northern Ireland and Scotland, or if you have any queries about the data for Scotland or Northern Ireland, please contact NRS and NISRA directly at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
England and Wales
The following analysis provides COVID-19 deaths by single year of age: Single year of age and average age of death of people whose death was due to or involved coronavirus (COVID-19).
This publication states that between March 2020 to February 2022, there were 20 deaths registered as involving COVID-19 with 17 having COVID-19 recorded as the underlying cause of death in the 5 to 11 age group.
From March 2022 to December 2022 (latest available data) there were 10 deaths registered as involving COVID-19 of which 7 had COVID-19 recorded as the underlying cause of death in the 5 to 11 age group.
Data for January 2023 will be published on 23 February 2023.
You may also find the following information regarding COVID-19 deaths with and without pre-existing conditions helpful:
Health conditions are recorded on the death certificate only if the certifying doctor or coroner believed they contributed to the death, direct or indirect. The death certificate does not include all health conditions from which the deceased might have suffered if they were not considered relevant to the causal chain of death
The death certificate (Annex A (PDF, 224KB)) used in England and Wales is compatible with that recommended by WHO. It is set out in two parts. Part I gives the condition or sequence of conditions leading directly to death, while Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death but are not part of the causal sequence.
We recommend using our pre-existing conditions methodology to answer queries for deaths with no pre-existing conditions, as it removes any conditions caused by the underlying cause of death.
We define pre-existing conditions as those mentioned in Part 2 of the medical certificate of cause of death. If COVID-19 is mentioned in Part 1 on lines above other conditions also mentioned in Part 1, the last condition mentioned in Part 1 is also considered a pre-existing condition.
We do not know exactly how many people who died from COVID-19 had no pre-existing health conditions, only how many did not have a pre-existing condition mentioned on the death certificate. A contributor to the cause of death is expected to have increased the likelihood of death, but this does not mean that the death would be avoided in its absence.
We use the term "due to COVID-19" when referring only to deaths with an underlying cause of death as COVID-19 and we use the term "involving COVID-19" when referring to deaths that had COVID-19 mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.
We would also recommend reading our recent blog on this subject: To say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading.
We hold analysis showing deaths due to COVID-19 with no pre-existing conditions by broad age-band in England and Wales in the following publication: Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales.
Please note, we do not hold analysis of your specific age group with or without pre-existing conditions due to our policy on Policy on protecting confidentiality in tables of birth and death statistics. Further disaggregation of the small number of deaths recorded in the 5-11 age group would be highly likely to release identifiable information.
For further information about England and Wales data please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.