Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many deaths in England had COVID-19 listed as the primary cause of death on the death certificate in 2020 in the months of (1) March, (2) April, (3) May, (4) June, (5) July, (6) August, and (7) September.

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

Dear Lord Naseby,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many deaths in England had COVID-19 listed as the primary cause of death on the death certificate in 2020 in the months of (1) March, (2) April, (3) May, (4) June, (5) July, (6) August, and (7) September (HL9433).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes statistics on deaths in England and Wales and produces a weekly report[1] on provisional numbers of deaths involving COVID-19. Mortality statistics are compiled from information supplied when deaths are certified and registered as part of civil registration. National Records for Scotland[2] and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency[3] are responsible for publishing statistics on deaths registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

Table 1 provides the number of deaths registered with COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death between 1 March 2020 and 30 September 2020, in England, by month.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Number of deaths registered where COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death, 1 March 2020 to 30 September 2020, England, by month[4][5][6][7]

Source: ONS

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

[2]https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/

[3]https://www.nisra.gov.uk/

[4]Figures include deaths of non-residents.

[5]Based on date a death was registered rather than occurred.

[6]All figures for 2020 are provisional.

[7]The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10) definitions are as follows: coronavirus (COVID-19) (U07.1 and U07.2).