Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people in England and Wales aged (1) under 65, and (2) under 40 years old have died from COVID-19 since 23 March.

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 responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many people in England and Wales aged under 65 years, and aged under 40 years have died from coronavirus (COVID-19) since 23 March (HL3276).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces a weekly report on provisional deaths registered in England and Wales[1], including deaths involving COVID-19. The week runs from Saturday to Friday. I have therefore provided data from 21 March up to the most recent week available, ending 17 April. ONS mortality statistics are compiled from information supplied when deaths are certified and registered as part of civil registration.

Table 1 below shows the number of deaths that occurred where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate between week 13 (ending 27 March 2020) and week 16 (17 April 2020). We have included these figures as they are presented in our weekly report.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Weekly provisional figures on death occurrence where coronavirus (COVID-19) was mentioned on the death certificate in England and Wales[2][3][4][5][6]

Source: ONS

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

[2]Counts of deaths involving Covid-19 will include neonatals.

[3]For deaths registered from 1st January 2020, cause of death is coded to the ICD-10 classification using MUSE 5.5 software. Previous years were coded to IRIS 4.2.3, further information about the change in software is available.

[4]Does not include deaths where age is either missing or not yet fully coded

[5]An 'underlying cause of death' refers to the main cause of death, whereas a cause being 'mentioned on the death certificate' means that it might be the main reason or a contributory reason to the cause of death

⁵These figures include deaths of non-residents.

[6]These figures represent death occurrences, there can be a delay between the date a death occurred and the date a death was registered. More information can be found in our impact of registration delays release.