You asked
How many people in the UK have died from Covid-19, rather than those who died from other reasons but were recorded as COVID-19 as a result of a positive test?
Please also provide figures for how many people died from season flu in the last 5 years.
We said
Thank you for your request.
UK deaths from COVID-19 directly:
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales only, however we have collaborated with the constituent countries to produce headline figures for the UK. These are available in the following publication: Provisional weekly deaths publication. Figures are based on the information collected at death registration. Unfortunately, it is not possible from the information recorded to identify how many cases were confirmed with a test. Therefore, we do not hold this information.
For further information on Scotland and Northern Ireland data you will need to contact National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Centre.
In most COVID-19 related deaths, COVID-19 is recorded as the underlying cause. However, the figures reported in the weekly deaths publication are a total count of deaths that 'involved' COVID-19, whether it was recorded as the underlying cause of death or mentioned elsewhere on the death certificate as a contributory factor.
Our monthly deaths publications, available via the following link: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales: Statistical bulletins provides an explanation of how many people die from COVID-19 and the percentage of deaths where COVID-19 was the underlying cause, based on deaths registered between March and June 2020.
From July 2020 onwards, owing to a lower number of deaths involving COVID-19, we have not published the comparison of "underlying" and "involving". Therefore, we would be unable to provide you with this information. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held. However, we are continuing to monitor deaths involving COVID-19 using both our weekly and monthly report and with any new increase in the numbers we will look to how we can continue to publish insights and analysis to inform users.
Influenza mortality figures for the past 5 years:
The number of death registered from influenza (ICD-10 underlying cause codes J09-J11) are available for the years 2013 to 2019 via the following link to NOMIS, our interactive webservice: NOMIS.
Provisional influenza death figures for 2020 are available via the following publication: Deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia, England and Wales: deaths occurring between 1 January and 31 August 2020. This publication states that between January and August 2020, there were 394 deaths due to influenza. The highest number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia occurred in January 2020, however influenza and pneumonia deaths were below the five-year average (2015 to 2019) in every month.
Finalised influenza figures for 2020 will be released in July 2021, in line with our usual publication schedule.