There were 10,391 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending September 5, 2025, compared with 8,278 in the previous week. During this time period, the two weeks with the highest number of weekly deaths were in April 2020, with the week ending April 17, 2020, having 22,351 deaths, and the following week 21,997 deaths, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Death and life expectancy As of 2022, the life expectancy for women in the UK was just over 82.5 years, and almost 78.6 years for men. Compared with 1765, when average life expectancy was under 39 years, this is a huge improvement in historical terms. Even in the more recent past, life expectancy was less than 47 years at the start of the 20th Century, and was under 70 as recently as the 1950s. Despite these significant developments in the long-term, improvements in life expectancy stalled between 2009/11 and 2015/17, and have even gone into decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males. COVID-19 in the UK The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were recorded on January 31, 2020, but it was not until a month later that cases began to rise exponentially. By March 5 of this year there were more than 100 cases, rising to 1,000 days later and passing 10,000 cumulative cases by March 26. At the height of the pandemic in late April and early May, there were around six thousand new cases being recorded daily. As of January 2023, there were more than 24.2 million confirmed cumulative cases of COVID-19 recorded in the United Kingdom, resulting in 202,156 deaths.

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex, region and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), in the latest weeks for which data are available.

For the week ending August 29, 2025, weekly deaths in England and Wales were 985 below the number expected, compared with 855 below what was expected in the previous week. In late 2022 and through early 2023, excess deaths were elevated for a number of weeks, with the excess deaths figure for the week ending January 13, 2023, the highest since February 2021. In the middle of April 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were almost 12,000 excess deaths a week recorded in England and Wales. It was not until two months later, in the week ending June 19, 2020, that the number of deaths began to be lower than the five-year average for the corresponding week. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom, making that year the deadliest since 1918, at the height of the Spanish influenza pandemic. As seen in the excess death figures, April 2020 was by far the worst month in terms of deaths during the pandemic. The weekly number of deaths for weeks 16 and 17 of that year were 22,351, and 21,997 respectively. Although the number of deaths fell to more usual levels for the rest of that year, a winter wave of the disease led to a high number of deaths in January 2021, with 18,676 deaths recorded in the fourth week of that year. For the whole of 2021, there were 667,479 deaths in the UK, 22,150 fewer than in 2020. Life expectancy in the UK goes into reverse In 2022, life expectancy at birth for women in the UK was 82.6 years, while for men it was 78.6 years. This was the lowest life expectancy in the country for ten years, and came after life expectancy improvements stalled throughout the 2010s, and then declined from 2020 onwards. There is also quite a significant regional difference in life expectancy in the UK. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, for example, the life expectancy for men was 81.5 years, and 86.5 years for women. By contrast, in Blackpool, in North West England, male life expectancy was just 73.1 years, while for women, life expectancy was lowest in Glasgow, at 78 years.

In July 2025, there were 45,791 deaths in England and Wales, compared with 44,401 in June. In April 2020, there were 88,038 deaths, which was an increase of almost 40,000 from the month before and by far the month with the most deaths in this period. The dramatic increase in deaths in April can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which first hit the UK in early 2020.

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by local authority, health board and place of death in the latest weeks for which data are available. The occurrence tabs in the 2021 edition of this dataset were updated for the last time on 25 October 2022.

There were 667,479 deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 689,629 in 2020. Between 2003 and 2011, the annual number of deaths in the UK fell from 612,085 to just over 552,232. Since 2011 however, the annual number of annual deaths in the United Kingdom has steadily grown, with the number recorded in 2020, the highest since 1918 when there were 715,246 deaths. Both of these spikes in the number of deaths can be attributed to infectious disease pandemics. The great influenza pandemic of 1918, which was at its height towards the end of World War One, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused numerous deaths in 2020. Impact of COVID-19 The weekly death figures for England and Wales highlight the tragic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. In two weeks in April 2020, there were 22,351 and 21,997 deaths respectively, almost 12,000 excess deaths in each of those weeks. Although hospitals were the most common location of these deaths, a significant number of these deaths also took place in care homes, with 7,911 deaths taking place in care homes for the week ending April 24, 2020, far higher than usual. By the summer of 2020, the number of deaths in England and Wales reached more usual levels, before a second wave of excess deaths hit the country that Winter, and peaking in late January 2021. Although subsequent waves of COVID-19 cases resulted in far fewer deaths, the number of excess deaths remained elevated throughout 2022. Long-term life expectancy trends As of 2022 the life expectancy for men in the United Kingdom was 78.57, and almost 82.57 for women, compared with life expectancies of 75 for men and 80 for women in 2002. In historical terms, this is a major improvement in relation to the mid-eighteenth century, when the overall life expectancy was just under 39 years. Between 2011 and 2017, improvements in life expectancy in the UK did start to decline, and have gone into reverse since 2018/20. Between 2020 and 2022 for example, life expectancy for men in the UK has fallen by over 37 weeks, and by almost 23 weeks for women, when compared with the previous year.

Annual data on death registrations by single year of age for the UK (1974 onwards) and England and Wales (1963 onwards).

Annual data on death registrations by area of usual residence in the UK. Summary tables including age-standardised mortality rates.

Annual UK and constituent country figures for births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships and civil partnership dissolutions.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of February 4, 2022, in the age group 75 to 84 years old COVID-19 was involved in the deaths of 32,780 males and 23,390 females in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, since the pandemic started over 72 thousand deaths in the UK among those aged 85 years and above involved COVID-19. For further information about the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period December 2022 - November 2023. The SHMI is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there. The SHMI covers patients admitted to hospitals in England who died either while in hospital or within 30 days of being discharged. Deaths related to COVID-19 are excluded from the SHMI. To help users of the data understand the SHMI, trusts have been categorised into bandings indicating whether a trust's SHMI is 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected'. For any given number of expected deaths, a range of observed deaths is considered to be 'as expected'. If the observed number of deaths falls outside of this range, the trust in question is considered to have a higher or lower SHMI than expected. The expected number of deaths is a statistical construct and is not a count of patients. The difference between the number of observed deaths and the number of expected deaths cannot be interpreted as the number of avoidable deaths or excess deaths for the trust. The SHMI is not a measure of quality of care. A higher than expected number of deaths should not immediately be interpreted as indicating poor performance and instead should be viewed as a 'smoke alarm' which requires further investigation. Similarly, an 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' SHMI should not immediately be interpreted as indicating satisfactory or good performance. Trusts may be located at multiple sites and may be responsible for 1 or more hospitals. A breakdown of the data by site of treatment is also provided, as well as a breakdown of the data by diagnosis group. Further background information and supporting documents, including information on how to interpret the SHMI, are available on the SHMI homepage (see Related Links). Information about the exclusion of COVID-19 from the SHMI can also be found on the same page. A link to the methodological changes statement which details the exclusion is also available in the Related Links section

Due to changes in the collection and availability of data on COVID-19 this page will no longer be updated. The webpage will no longer be available as of 11 May 2023. On-going, reliable sources of data for COVID-19 are available via the COVID-19 dashboard, Office for National Statistics, and the UKHSA This page provides a weekly summary of data on deaths related to COVID-19 published by NHS England and the Office for National Statistics. More frequent reporting on COVID-19 deaths is now available here, alongside data on cases, hospitalisations, and vaccinations. This update contains data on deaths related to COVID-19 from: NHS England COVID-19 Daily Deaths - last updated on 28 June 2022 with data up to and including 27 June 2022. ONS weekly deaths by Local Authority - last updated on 16 August 2022 with data up to and including 05 August 2022. Summary notes about each these sources are provided at the end of this document. Note on interpreting deaths data: statistics from the available sources differ in definition, timing and completeness. It is important to understand these differences when interpreting the data or comparing between sources. Weekly Key Points An additional 24 deaths in London hospitals of patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 and an additional 5 where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate were announced in the week ending 27 June 2022. This compares with 40 and 3 for the previous week. A total of 306 deaths in hospitals of patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 and 27 where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate were announced for England as whole. This compares with 301 and 26 for the previous week. The total number of COVID-19 deaths reported in London hospitals of patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 is now 19,102. The total number of deaths in London hospitals where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate is now 1,590. This compares to figures of 119,237 and 8,197 for English hospitals as a whole. Due to the delay between death occurrence and reporting, the estimated number of deaths to this point will be revised upwards over coming days These figures do not include deaths that occurred outside of hospitals. Data from ONS has indicated that the majority (79%) of COVID-19 deaths in London have taken place in hospitals. Recently announced deaths in Hospitals 21 June 22 June 23 June 24 June 25 June 26 June 27 June London No positive test 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 London Positive test 3 7 2 10 0 0 2 Rest of England No positive test 2 6 4 4 0 0 6 Rest of England Positive test 47 49 41 58 6 0 81 16 May 23 May 30 May 06 June 13 June 20 June 27 June London No positive test 14 3 4 0 4 3 5 London Positive test 45 34 55 20 62 40 24 Rest of England No positive test 41 58 33 23 47 23 22 Rest of England Positive test 456 375 266 218 254 261 282 Deaths by date of occurrence 21 June 22 June 23 June 24 June 25 June 26 June 27 June London 20,683 20,686 20,690 20,691 20,692 20,692 20,692 Rest of England 106,604 106,635 106,679 106,697 106,713 106,733 106,742 Interpreting the data The data published by NHS England are incomplete due to: delays in the occurrence and subsequent reporting of deaths deaths occurring outside of hospitals not being included The total deaths reported up to a given point are therefore less than the actual number that have occurred by the same point. Delays in reporting NHS provide the following guidance regarding the delay between occurrence and reporting of deaths: Confirmation of COVID-19 diagnosis, death notification and reporting in central figures can take up to several days and the hospitals providing the data are under significant operational pressure. This means that the totals reported at 5pm on each day may not include all deaths that occurred on that day or on recent prior days. The data published by NHS England for reporting periods from April 1st onward includes both date of occurrence and date of reporting and so it is possible to illustrate the distribution of these reporting delays. This data shows that approximately 10% of COVID-19 deaths occurring in London hospitals are included in the reporting period ending on the same day, and that approximately two-thirds of deaths were reported by two days after the date of occurrence. Deaths outside of hospitals The data published by NHS England does not include deaths that occur outside of hospitals, i.e. those in homes, hospices, and care homes. ONS have published data for deaths by place of occurrence. This shows that, up to 05 August, 79% of deaths in London recorded as involving COVID-19 occurred in hospitals (this compares with 44% for all causes of death). This would suggest that the NHS England data may underestimate overall deaths from COVID-19 by around 20%. Comparison of data sources Note on data sources NHS England provides numbers of patients who have died in hospitals in England and had tested positive for COVID-19, and from 25 April, the number of patients where COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate and no positive COVID-19 test result was received. Figures are updated each day at 2pm with deaths reported up to 5pm the previous day. There is a delay between the occurrence of a death to it being captured in the daily reporting. The data can be presented both as reported deaths by day and death occurrences by day. Reported occurrences for recent days should be considered incomplete as likely to be revised upwards as more data becomes available. The location of a death reflects the location of the hospital in which it occurred. Source: NHS England COVID-19 Daily Deaths The Office for National Statistics publishes deaths for England and Wales by the week in which they were registered. Due to the delay between the occurrence of a death and its registration, many deaths that occur in a given week will appear in the data for a subsequent week. For 2018, ONS estimated that 74% of deaths were registered within seven days. Additional delays in registration can occur over public holidays, with significant changes in numbers being observable over Easter and Christmas. The location of a death reflects the usual residence of the deceased. There are some differences in total numbers reported for different geographical levels. The figures published at the local authority level have been used in this analysis. The data is updated each Tuesday at 9.30am with data for the week ending eleven days prior. For the 2020 series, ONS has included the number of deaths where coronavirus (COVID-19) was mentioned on the death certificate. This data includes deaths for all places of occurrence. The ONS started publishing deaths in care homes notified to the Care Quality Commission on 28th April for local authorities in England by date of notification. This data includes an additional week of data compared to the main ONS publication. Source: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional, Death registrations and occurrences by local authority, Deaths in care homes notified to the Care Quality Commission, report

Age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), non-COVID-19 deaths and all deaths by vaccination status, broken down by age group.

The Death Registrations in England and Wales, 1993-2023: Secure Access study includes annual data files for all deaths registered in England and Wales from 1993 to 2022. Death registration is a legal requirement under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836. The registration of deaths occurring in England and Wales is a service carried out by the Local Registration Service in partnership with the General Register Office (GRO). Information collected at death registration is recorded on the Registration Online (RON) system by registrars. The information supplied at the time of registration is from 1 of 4 sources:

1. details supplied by the doctor when certifying a death
2. details supplied by the informant to the registrar
3. details supplied by a coroner to the registrar following an investigation
4. details derived from the information supplied above

Death registration data are passed to the Office for National Statistics electronically from GRO for statistical purposes. Each annual dataset is a static file of death registration records available at the time the annual subset was closed. Revisions to records can still be made after the subset has been finalised but these will not be reflected in the annual dataset or used to compile statistics. The annual datasets include deaths that have been registered in that calendar year, a small percentage of these deaths may have occurred in previous years (2.9% in 2001 and 4.8% in 2015). Deaths to those usually resident in England or Wales who die abroad are not included in the dataset. Deaths registered in England and Wales to those whose usual residence is outside England and Wales are included.

Further information about mortality statistics is available from the Office for National Statistics https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths" title="Deaths">deaths web page.

Prospective users will need to apply for access to this controlled access data via the UK Data Service Secure Lab. Further information is available on the Apply to Access Controlled Data in SecureLab web pages.

Latest edition information:
For the 11th edition (July 2025), lookup tables containing month and year of birth for deaths in 2022 and 2023 were added to the study.

There were 2,784 infant deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 2,620 in the previous year. The number of infant deaths in 2020 was the fewest in the provided time period, especially compared with 1900 when there were 163,470 infant deaths.