Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many deaths occurred in each of the last 12 months where the cause of death was listed as COVID-19.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.

The Rt Hon. the Lord Hain

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

20 October 2023

Dear Lord Hain,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many deaths occurred in each of the last 12 months where the cause of death was listed as COVID-19 (HL10538).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for publishing statistics on deaths registered in England and Wales [1]. Figures for Scotland [2] and Northern Ireland [3] are the responsibility of National Records for Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, respectively.

Causes mentioned on the death certificate are converted to International Classification of Diseases 10th edition (ICD-10) codes, with the underlying cause of death defined as the disease or injury that initiated the events that directly lead to the death. The ICD-10 codes for COVID-19 are U07.1, U07.2, U10.9, U09.9.

Table 1 shows the number of deaths due to COVID-19 registered in England and Wales by month registered between October 2022 and September 2023.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Deaths due to COVID-19 by month and year of registration, England and Wales, registered October 2022 and September 2023 [4,5,6,7,8].

Source: Office for National Statistics

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/

[2] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths

[3] https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/births-deaths-and-marriages/deaths

[4] Figures are for deaths registered, rather than deaths occurring in each period.

[5] Figures are based on provisional data.

[6] Figures include the deaths of usual residents of England and Wales as well as those of nonresidents.

[7] Figures are based on deaths where COVID-19 (ICD-10 codes U07.1, U07.2, U10.9, U09.9) was the underlying cause of death.

[8] Deaths due to COVID-19 refers to deaths where COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death. The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death.