Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the total number of COVID-19 deaths in England since 1 July; and how many of those deaths were people who were either (1) unvaccinated, or (2) had underlying health conditions.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.

Professor Sir Ian Diamond | National Statistician

Lord West of Spithead

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

27 October 2021

Dear Lord West of Spithead,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking the total number of COVID-19 deaths in England since 1 July; and how many of those deaths were people who were either (1) unvaccinated, or (2) had underlying health conditions (HL3191).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes mortality statistics for England and Wales compiled from information supplied when deaths are certified and registered as part of civil registration. Based on the latest data in the bulletin ‘Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: 15 October 2021’¹, there were 7,673 deaths involving COVID-19 registered between 1 July 2021 and 8 October 2021 in England.

Information provided at death registration can be used to identify the presence of pre-existing health conditions. The data are published quarterly in the ‘Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales’ dataset². These are currently available until the end of June 2021. In the second quarter of 2021 (April to June), 18.8% of people who died due to COVID-19 in England and Wales had no pre-existing condition. The data for the third quarter (July to September) will be published on 23 November 2021.

The vaccination status of the deceased is not recorded at death registration unless the certifying doctor or coroner considered it to be relevant to the cause of death. To produce statistics on deaths by COVID-19 vaccination status the ONS has created a linked dataset which includes death registrations, vaccination data from the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) and Test and Trace data on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results. The methods are described in ‘Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 2 July 2021’³. Unfortunately, this publication only covered deaths that occurred up to 2 July 2021. However, an update of this publication, covering deaths that occurred up to 24 September 2021, will be published on 1 November. Of the 51,281 deaths involving Covid-19 that occurred between 2 January and 2 July 2021, 38,964 (76.0%) occurred in unvaccinated individuals. Please note, however, that this proportion is likely to change in the most recent period, as an increasing number of people are now vaccinated.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

1 Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: 15 October 2021

2 Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales

3 Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 2 July 2021. 13 September 2021