Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in the UK in each week during 2020.

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

Dear Lord Marlesford,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what estimate has been made of the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in the UK in each week during 2020 (HL4424).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for publishing weekly numbers of deaths registered in England and Wales. The most recent annual figures published are for deaths registered in 2018[1]. However, we do publish provisional weekly deaths registrations, which are currently published for deaths registered up to 1 May 2020[2]. National Records Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for publishing the number of deaths registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

Cause of death is defined using the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th edition (ICD-10). Deaths involving COVID-19 either as a contributory or underlying cause of death are identified by the ICD-10 codes U07.1 and U07.2.

Data can refer to deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate (and may not always be the underlying cause of death), and deaths where COVID-19 was recorded as the underlying cause of death.The accompanying dataset[3] to our provisional weekly deaths bulletin includes UK data on deaths involving COVID-19, which refer to deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate.

Table 1 shows the provisional number of deaths involving COVID-19 registered each week in the UK up to 1 May 2020, broken down by country.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Number of deaths involving COVID-19 registered each week in the UK, 28 December 2019 to 1 May 2020[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

Source: Office for National Statistics

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

[2]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1may2020

[3]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

[4]Cause of death was defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes U07.1, U07.2

[5]Figures are based on deaths registered up to 1 May 2020

[6]All figures for 2020 are provisional

[7]Weekly deaths for Scotland are produced by NRS: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

[8]Weekly deaths for Northern Ireland are produced by NISRA: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

[9]England, Wales and Northern Ireland weekly deaths run from Saturday to Friday, Scotland deaths run from Monday to Sunday

[10]Northern Ireland week allocation differs from other countries. For example, week 1 is week ending 10-Jan. This has been adjusted for the purpose of aggregating the data