Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord True on 28 May (HL4424), what estimate they have made of the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in the UK in each week since 1 May.

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, further to the Written Answer by Lord True on 28 May (HL4424), about the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in the UK in each week since 1 May (HL7234).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for publishing numbers of deaths registered in England and Wales. The most recent annual figures published are for deaths registered in 2019[1]. However, we do publish provisional weekly deaths registrations, which are currently available for deaths registered up to 10 July 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, as either a contributory or underlying cause of death, are identified by the ICD-10 codes U07.1 and U07.2.

The accompanying dataset² 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 from the week ending 8 May up to the week ending 10 July 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, week ending 8 May up to the week ending 10 July 2020[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

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

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

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

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

[5]All figures for 2020 are provisional

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

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

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

[9]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