Deaths from meningitis, sepsis, influenza and COVID-19 in 2019 and 2020

You asked

Please provide the following information:

1. Please provide the number of deaths from Jan - June 2019 from meningitis and from sepsis and, for comparison, the same number of deaths from Jan - June 2020 from meningitis and sepsis.

2. I am also interested in comparing the number of deaths attributed to complications of Influenza (all strains) from Jan-June 2019 and for Jan-June 2020.

3. Could you also please send me the number of deaths from Jan-June 2020 attributed to COVID-19 as the ONLY cause of death.

4. I would appreciate it if you could also provide these details in comparison graphs of deaths over time, and how these compare to the 5-year average.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Unfortunately, we would able to provide death data from meningitis, sepsis, and influenza specifically from the months of January to June in 2019 and 2020. Nor would we be able to provide this information in comparison graphs of deaths over time and how these compare to the 5-year average. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create bespoke analysis for you. 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.

We may be able to create a custom output for the 5-year average for meningitis, sepsis and influenza deaths using 2014-2019 data. Information, along with other special extracts, and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order. These will be subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs (where appropriate). If you would like to discuss the commission of this bespoke output, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

Information regarding deaths from COVID-19 only can be found via the following link to our Deaths involving COVID-19 publication: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales: deaths occurring in June 2020. Of the deaths involving COVID-19 that occurred in England and Wales in March to June 2020, there was at least one pre-existing condition in 91.1% of cases; this is a similar level to that shown in March to May. Therefore, 8.9% of deaths from COVID-19 were from COVID-19 only.

Please see the following available sources of information regarding sepsis, meningitis, and influenza, which may be of interest:

Data relating to influenza, meningitis and sepsis for the whole year of 2019 are available on our NOMIS webservice. These data are available for 2013-2019. We have provided the tables below, extracted from NOMIS.

For 2019 Influenza deaths, please use the ICD10 codes J09-J11. The following table provides deaths from influenza in 2019.

There are numerous ICD10 Codes for Meningitis, depending on the strain of meningitis you wish to query. I have only included ICD10 codes where there is a death count. ICD10 codes with zero deaths have been omitted from this list, but are freely available on the NOMIS website.

As with meningitis, there are numerous ICD10 codes for Sepsis. I have only included ICD10 codes where there is a death count. ICD10 codes with zero deaths have been omitted from this list, but are freely available on the NOMIS website.

Similar data to the above for deaths occuring in 2020 will be available on NOMIS in 2021.

Please also see the following publication, which provides deaths on a weekly basis from respiratory illnesses in 2020, including influenza. However, this has not been disaggregated to show deaths from influenza specifically: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional.

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