Death

(asked on 21st April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many deaths have been recorded in each of the last three months; and what assessment they have made of how many deaths would have occurred in each of the last three months if there had been no cases of COVID 19.


Answered by
Lord True Portrait
Lord True
Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
This question was answered on 4th May 2020

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

Dear Lord Pearson,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am replying to your Parliamentary Question asking for the number of deaths that have been registered in the last three months and predictions about how many deaths there would have been without COVID-19 (HL3274).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces a weekly report on provisional deaths registered in England and Wales[1]. The most recent figures available are for the week ending 17 April 2020. ONS mortality statistics are compiled from information supplied when deaths are certified and registered as part of civil registration.

Table 1 shows the number of weekly deaths registered between week 1 (ending 3 January 2020) and week 16 (ending 17 April 2020), the five-year average per week and the number of deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. The average is based on the number of death registrations that were recorded for each corresponding week over the previous five years. We have included these figures as they are presented in our weekly report. A copy of the table has been placed in the House of Lords Library. The table shows that the increase in number of excess deaths in the last two months, in relation to the five-year average per week, is greater than the number of deaths due to Covid19, suggesting that there are potentially other factors contributing to the increased death rate.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

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

Reticulating Splines