FOI Ref: FOI/2023/4815
You asked
Please supply deaths caused solely by COVID-19, where COVID-19 is the only cause of death listed on the death certificate, broken down by age group and sex between January 2022 up to and including January 2023.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from death certificates at death registration.
Deaths from COVID-19 may include cases where the doctor completing the death certificate diagnosed possible cases of COVID-19, for example, where this was based on relevant symptoms but no test for the virus was conducted. Deaths with a positive test are coded using the ICD10 code U0.71 and those with suspected COVID-19 but no test has been conducted are coded with ICD10 U0.72.
We have been producing the following analysis on this topic: Pre-existing conditions of people whose death was recorded with an underlying cause of COVID-19. This dataset provides a greater insight into the leading pre-existing cause of death groups, for deaths occurring in England and Wales that were due to COVID-19, between 2020 and 2021 (finalised) and provisionally 2022. Please refer to the data labelled 'no pre-existing conditions' for the information you require.
The finalised datasets for 2020 and 2021 have broad age breakdowns and are split by sex. However, we are have not split the quarterly datasets in 2022 by sex, as disclosive figures would be produced in some of the cause groups. This is in line with our disclosure control policy: Policy on protecting confidentiality in tables of birth and death statistics. We will publish the finalised 2022 data in July 2023, this will include a breakdown by sex.
If these publications do not meet your needs, we can create a custom output via our bespoke services. Please be aware that where requests include provisional data (e.g. for 2022 or 2023), this data may be subject to change following the addition of late death registrations. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order, subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs. If you would like to discuss the provision of this information, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.