FOI REF: FOI-2024-1836

You asked

I would like figures for excess deaths in males 49-54 please in wales for 2023.

Please state any links to vaccines being taken or not, also would like split into home or community death or hospital.

We are most interested in deaths and require urgent information   

We said

Thank you for your request.

Due to how the age variable is specified in our statistical models, we are not able to provide estimates for males in Wales aged 49 to 54 years. However, we are able to provide estimates for the two age groups 45 to 49 years and 50 to 54 years. These were not published in our article on Excess deaths, because of the large uncertainty around the estimates. In 2023, we estimate that there were 29 excess deaths (95% confidence interval: 15 to 42 excess deaths) among males in Wales aged 45 to 49 years, and 89 excess deaths (95% confidence interval: 68 to 109 excess deaths) among males in Wales aged 50 to 54 years. Please note that these estimates relate to deaths registered in England or Wales among usual residents of Wales. 

It is not possible to estimate the number of excess deaths by vaccination status. Excess deaths cannot be counted at an individual level like death registrations. Instead, they must be estimated at an aggregate level using statistical techniques, by comparing the observed number of deaths in a particular period with the number of deaths that would be expected under “normal” circumstances. The expected number of deaths is estimates using previous death registrations data from a historical baseline period. For 2023, this baseline period starts in February 2017 and ends in December 2022. The UK COVID-19 vaccination programme started in December 2020, with the majority of the population receiving their first dose in 2021. Therefore, it is impossible to define COVID-19 vaccination status for the majority of the baseline period, thus it is not possible to estimate the number of expected and excess deaths by COVID-19 vaccination status in 2023. 

At present, it is not possible to produce estimates of excess deaths by place of death using our new methodology. We intend to investigate this as a future development of the methodology.