You asked
Please provide the number of deaths in England from influenza so far in 2020.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for producing mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Unfortunately, we would be unable to provide you with a breakdown of the number of deaths from influenza in 2020 so far. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create this 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.
A full breakdown of mortality data for 2020 is expected to be available in our "annual deaths registration" publication. This is provisionally scheduled to be released in July 2021.
However, we do have some analysis which may be of interest to you:
Provisional data is available from March – June 2020 grouped for both "Influenza and Pneumonia" (J09 – J18) in Table 5 of Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales. Please note, due to the decrease in COVID-19 deaths, this publication will not be updated moving forward.
Influenza and pneumonia: England and Wales – 4582
Influenza and pneumonia: England – 4426
Influenza and pneumonia: Wales – 147
We also publish a dataset for deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, which includes provisional figures for deaths by all respiratory diseases and the coronavirus (COVID-19). In this publication, influenza deaths are not shown separately, instead they are included in respiratory deaths (ICD Code J00 – J99).
If you have any queries, please email Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.