You are here: Home / Statistics / Accompanying Conditions of Deaths from COVID-19, March 2020 – February 2022

Accompanying Conditions of Deaths from COVID-19, March 2020 – February 2022

Pneumonia was an accompanying condition in 56% of COVID-19 deaths

CSO statistical release, 16 August 2022, 11am

Frontier Series Output

CSO Frontier Series outputs may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release.
Learn more about CSO Frontier Series outputs

Key Findings

In deaths between March 2020 and February 2022, COVID-19 was identified as the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) in 5,384 cases.
Four in five deaths from COVID-19 had at least three medical conditions mentioned on the death record. Death certificates listed 4.2 conditions on average per person.
The largest number of accompanying conditions of COVID-19 deaths were diseases of the respiratory system, which were reported in 5,279 (or 98%) of COVID-19 deaths.
Pneumonia was certified as a condition in 3,023 (or 56%) of COVID-19 deaths. Chronic lower respiratory diseases were stated on 948 (or 18%) death certificates, of which 714 (or 13%) had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
COVID-19 was the UCOD in 2.3% of all deaths involving cancer of the bronchus or lung, in 3.0% of all deaths where breast cancer was reported, and in almost 6% of all deaths which mentioned prostate cancer as a condition suffered by the deceased person.
Asthma was certified in 136 COVID-19 deaths which represented 18% of all deaths with a mention of asthma, while obesity, reported in 80 COVID-19 deaths, accounted for 19% of all deaths affected by the condition.
Looking at the data by age, 91% of COVID-19 deaths occurred in persons aged 65 and over; 75% in persons aged 75 and over; and 42% in persons aged 85 and over.
More males died due to COVID-19 (53%) in the defined period than females (47%).

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (16 August 2022) released a Frontier Series Output focusing specifically on deaths due to COVID-19 occurring in Ireland between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022.

Commenting on the release, Gerard Doolan, Statistician in the Vital Statistics Division, said: "This analysis classifies COVID-19 deaths by their accompanying medical conditions. A death certificate may list multiple medical conditions, based upon which, the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) is identified (see Background Notes). The data included in this analysis comprises of deaths between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022 where COVID-19 was the UCOD in a total of 5,384 deaths. This analysis focuses on the other conditions or diseases that accompanied these deaths. It is worth noting that as a single death certificate can contain multiple accompanying medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths from COVID-19. Also, a death due to COVID-19 differs from a death with COVID-19, in that COVID-19 is identified as the main UCOD in those who died due to COVID-19, while it is one of a number of conditions listed in deaths certified as a death with COVID-19. The total number of COVID-19 deaths included in this analysis is 5,384 deaths.

Looking at the data, we can see that a total of 183 deaths (or 3.4%) reported COVID-19 as the single cause of death, whereas, 5,201 (or almost 97%) COVID-19 deaths were certified as having had COVID-19 and at least one other medical condition on the death certificate.

The highest individual medical conditions reported on death certificates were pneumonia with 3,023 (or 56%) COVID-19 deaths, dementia with 1,041 (or 19%) such deaths, and chronic lower respiratory diseases with 948 (or 18%) such deaths (see Table 1).

COVID-19 was the UCOD in 2.3% of all deaths involving cancer of bronchus or lung, in 3.0% of all deaths where breast cancer was reported, and in almost 6% of all deaths which mentioned prostate cancer as an accompanying medical condition (see Table 2).

On average, death certificates listed 4.2 medical conditions per person (see Table 3)."

Top 10 accompanying conditions reported in deaths due to COVID-19
ICD-10 code	Condition reported on the death certificate	Number of deaths where COVID-19 was the Underlying Cause of Death ¹	Percentage of deaths with this condition where COVID-19 was the Underlying Cause of Death (%) ²
J12–J18	Pneumonia	3,023	27.5
F01,F03	Dementia	1,041	12.4
J40–J47	Chronic lower respiratory diseases	948	10.2
I10	Hypertension	880	9.7
I25	Chronic ischaemic heart disease	780	6.0
C00–C97	Malignant neoplasms	779	2.7
J44	Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	714	9.5
E10–E14	Diabetes mellitus	706	9.3
I48	Atrial fibrillation and flutter	671	9.1
I50	Heart failure	533	6.2
¹ As a single death certificate can contain multiple medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths due to COVID-19.
² As a single death certificate can contain multiple medical conditions, the percentages of COVID-19 deaths by condition do not sum to 100.

Open in Excel: Accompanying Conditions of Deaths from COVID-19, March 2020 – February 2022 Headline Table (XLS 9KB)

Visit Table VSD43 on PxStat

Editor's note

This Frontier Series Output presents the results of an analysis of the accompanying conditions in deaths due to COVID-19. The deaths analysed occurred in Ireland between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022 and have been registered with the General Register Office (GRO) and subsequently notified to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) by 31 May 2022.

The analysis focuses on deaths where COVID-19 was found to have been the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD). A death certificate may list multiple medical conditions, based upon which, the UCOD is identified by applying specific guidelines from the World Health Organization. A death due to COVID-19 differs from a death with COVID-19, in that COVID-19 is identified as the UCOD in those who died due to COVID-19, while it is one of a number of conditions listed in deaths certified as a death with COVID-19 (see Background Notes). In deaths between March 2020 and February 2022, COVID-19 was reported as a medical condition in 6,255 cases and was identified as the UCOD in 5,384 cases.

While the CSO regularly publishes statistics on the underlying causes of death in Ireland, this Frontier Series Output aims to present statistics on other conditions or diseases that accompanied deaths due to COVID-19 and that are themselves not determined to have been the UCOD.

Accompanying conditions recorded on death certificates

This release presents the findings of an analysis of the accompanying conditions in COVID-19 deaths. This analysis considers all conditions that were recorded on the death certificates other than COVID-19. In short, it shows the number of persons who died due to COVID-19 and had certain selected conditions or diseases recorded on the death certificates. The accompanying conditions are also referred to as comorbidities. For further information on the selection of the conditions included in this analysis, see Background Notes.

Note that, as a single death certificate can contain multiple accompanying medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths from COVID-19. The total number of COVID-19 deaths included in this analysis are 5,384 deaths.

This analysis of the accompanying medical conditions stated on the certificates shows that:

The largest number of accompanying conditions in COVID-19 deaths were diseases of the respiratory system which were reported in 5,279 (or 98%) of COVID-19 deaths.
Pneumonia was certified as a medical condition in 3,023 (or 56%) COVID-19 deaths. Chronic lower respiratory diseases were stated on 948 (or 18%) death certificates, of which 714 (or 13%) had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The second largest number of accompanying conditions in COVID-19 deaths were diseases of the circulatory system which were reported in 4,259 (or 79%) of COVID-19 deaths. The highest individual conditions in this group of diseases were hypertension (880, or 16%), chronic ischaemic heart disease (780, 14%) and atrial fibrillation and flutter (671, or 12%).
Dementia was certified in 1,041 (or 19%) COVID-19 deaths, Alzheimer disease in 167 (or 3.1%), and type 2 diabetes in 437 (or 8.1%).
Malignant neoplasms were reported on 779 (or 14%) COVID-19 death certificates. Prostate cancer was an accompanying condition in 115 (or 2.1%) COVID-19 deaths, lung cancer in 95 (or almost 2%), and lymphoma in 77 (or 1.4%).

See Table 1 for details.

1. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2022 classified by other selected conditions reported on the death certificate and by age group

Table 1. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2022 classified by other selected conditions reported on the death certificate and by age group
ICD-10 code	Condition reported on the death certificate¹	All ages	0-14 years	15-24 years	25-34 years	35-44 years	45-54 years	55-64 years	65-74 years	75-84 years	85+ years
A00–B99	I Infectious and parasitic diseases	202	–	–	1	5	16	29	41	59	51
B20–B24	Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease	5	–	–	–	–	1	1	–	3	–

C00–D48	II Neoplasms	849	–	–	2	11	15	72	186	318	245
C00–C97	Malignant neoplasms	779	–	–	2	10	13	67	175	289	223
C34	Malignant neoplasm of bronchus and lung	95	–	–	–	–	1	7	27	45	15
C50	Malignant neoplasm of breast	58	–	–	–	1	1	4	9	19	24
C61	Malignant neoplasm of prostate	115	–	–	–	–	–	2	14	51	48
C760	Malignant neoplasm of head, face and neck	6	–	–	–	–	–	1	1	2	2
C81–C88	Lymphoma	77	–	–	–	4	2	11	29	21	10
C900	Myeloma	35	–	–	–	–	–	5	11	13	6
C91–C95	Leukaemia	74	–	–	1	–	3	6	12	33	19

D50–D89	III Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanism	117	–	–	–	1	7	13	22	33	41
D57	Sickle-cell disorders	1	–	–	–	–	–	–	1	–	–

E00–E90	IV Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases	1,106	–	–	5	6	26	74	236	382	377
E10–E14	Diabetes mellitus	706	–	–	2	2	8	44	155	265	230
E11	Type 2 diabetes mellitus	437	–	–	–	1	3	24	87	159	163
E66	Obesity	80	–	–	1	3	11	18	27	16	4
E70–E90	Metabolic disorders	147	–	–	1	–	5	4	34	46	57
E84	Cystic fibrosis	2	–	–	1	–	–	–	–	–	1

F00–F99	V Mental and behavioural disorders	1,285	–	1	–	–	10	24	121	427	702
F01,F03	Dementia	1,041	–	–	–	–	2	4	63	355	617
F20	Schizophrenia	33	–	–	–	–	–	4	9	13	7
F31	Bipolar affective disorder	16	–	–	–	–	–	–	4	7	5
F32	Depressive episode	63	–	–	–	–	–	4	8	19	32

G00–G99	VI Diseases of the nervous system	634	1	1	2	3	10	44	120	222	231
G122	Motor neuron disease	5	–	–	–	–	–	–	3	2	–
G20	Parkinson disease	164	–	–	–	–	–	3	25	71	65
G30	Alzheimer disease	167	–	–	–	–	–	4	7	54	102
G35	Multiple sclerosis	15	–	–	–	–	–	3	6	4	2
G40	Epilepsy	69	–	–	–	1	1	8	12	28	19
G80	Cerebral palsy	16	1	1	1	1	–	6	3	3	–

H00–H59	VII Diseases of the eye and adnexa	27	–	–	–	–	–	2	3	6	16

H60–H95	VIII Diseases of the ear and mastoid process	7	–	–	–	–	1	–	–	1	5

I00–I99	IX Diseases of the circulatory system	4,259	–	3	8	15	59	159	613	1,396	2,006
I05–I09	Chronic rheumatic heart diseases	13	–	–	–	–	–	1	2	7	3
I10	Hypertension	880	–	–	1	–	16	38	126	289	410
I25	Chronic ischaemic heart disease	780	–	–	–	1	5	27	124	264	359
I26–I28	Pulmonary heart disease and diseases of pulmonary circulation	177	–	2	2	5	17	21	36	53	41
I48	Atrial fibrillation and flutter	671	–	–	–	–	1	11	61	233	365
I50	Heart failure	533	–	–	–	2	–	10	58	167	296
I64	Stroke	281	–	–	1	–	3	6	38	92	141
I73	Other peripheral vascular diseases	75	–	–	–	–	–	3	22	29	21

J00–J99	X Diseases of the respiratory system	5,279	1	4	18	33	143	357	1,022	1,855	1,846
J12–J18	Pneumonia	3,023	1	3	9	24	80	198	570	1,024	1,114
J40–J47	Chronic lower respiratory diseases	948	–	–	1	1	13	68	185	372	308
J40–J42	Bronchitis	5	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	2	3
J43	Emphysema	39	–	–	–	–	–	6	10	19	4
J44	Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	714	–	–	–	–	5	40	135	305	229
J45	Asthma	136	–	–	–	1	7	15	29	31	53
J47	Bronchiectasis	54	–	–	1	–	1	7	11	15	19
J84	Other interstitial pulmonary diseases	146	–	–	1	–	3	17	35	59	31

K00–K93	XI Diseases of the digestive system	396	–	–	7	9	22	42	93	115	108
K70–K77	Diseases of liver	120	–	–	4	8	13	26	42	21	6

L00–L99	XII Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue	49	–	–	–	–	1	5	6	19	18

M00–M99	XIII Diseases of musculoskeletal system and connective tissue	439	1	1	2	1	8	34	60	148	184
M05–M06	Rheumatoid arthritis	97	–	–	–	–	1	13	18	42	23
M32	Systemic lupus erythematosus	7	–	–	–	–	1	–	3	2	1
M34	Systemic sclerosis	8	–	–	–	–	–	2	4	2	–

N00–N99	XIV Diseases of genitourinary system	933	–	–	2	4	21	45	159	349	353
N18	Chronic kidney disease	482	–	–	2	–	8	21	81	193	177

O00–O99	XV Complications of pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

P00–P96	XVI Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

Q00–Q99	XVII Congenital malformations and chromosomal abnormalities	36	1	–	2	2	8	10	7	5	1
Q90	Down Syndrome	13	–	–	–	–	5	6	2	–	–

R00–R99	XVIII Symptoms, signs, abnormal findings, ill–defined causes	591	1	–	–	7	26	46	85	169	257

V01–Y89	XX External causes of injury and poisoning	534	–	1	5	6	14	28	102	176	202
Y83	Surgical operation and other surgical procedures	253	–	1	–	2	5	9	55	91	90
Y841	Kidney dialysis	30	–	–	1	1	1	1	11	10	5
Y842	Radiological procedure and radiotherapy	8	–	–	–	–	–	–	2	5	1
Y883	Sequelae of surgical and medical procedures	45	–	–	1	–	2	4	9	18	11
¹ As a single death certificate can contain multiple medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths due to COVID-19.

Open in Excel: Accompanying Conditions of Deaths from COVID-19, March 2020 – February 2022 Table 1 (XLS 17KB)

Visit Table VSD43 on PxStat

Percentages of deaths with selected conditions that were due to COVID-19

Table 2 provides more context to the selected conditions in COVID-19 deaths. The percentages below consider the number of deaths with a selected condition listed where COVID-19 was identified as the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) in relation to the total number of deaths with the same condition from any UCOD (not restricted to COVID-19) in the same period.

Please note, caution must be exercised in commenting on any conditions which occurred in less than 20 deaths (see Table 1) because of the low volumes.

The analysis of the multiple medical conditions stated on the deaths certificates shows that:

COVID-19 was identified as the UCOD in almost 3% of all deaths that had malignant neoplasms reported as a condition, in 6.2% of all deaths with diseases of the circulatory system and 16% of all deaths with diseases of the respiratory system.
COVID-19 was the UCOD in 2.3% of all deaths involving cancer of the bronchus or lung, in 3.0% of all deaths where breast cancer was reported, and in almost 6% of all deaths which mentioned prostate cancer as an accompanying medical condition.
Asthma was certified in 136 COVID-19 deaths (see Table 1) which represented 18% of all deaths with a mention of asthma.
Obesity, which was reported in 80 COVID-19 deaths (see Table 1), accounted for 19% of all deaths affected by obesity.
Kidney dialysis was reported in 30 COVID-19 deaths (see Table 1) which represented 18% of all deaths complicated by kidney dialysis.

See Table 2 for details. The percentages for the larger groupings of diseases are visualised in Figure 2.

2. Percentages of deaths with selected conditions between March 2020 and February 2022 that were due to COVID-19

Table 2. Percentages of deaths with selected conditions between March 2020 and February 2022 that were due to COVID-19
ICD-10 code	Condition reported on the death certificate	Percentage of deaths with this condition where COVID-19 was the Underlying Cause of Death (%)¹
A00–B99	I Infectious and parasitic diseases	6.3
B20–B24	Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease	16.7

C00–D48	II Neoplasms	2.9
C00–C97	Malignant neoplasms	2.7
C34	Malignant neoplasm of bronchus and lung	2.3
C50	Malignant neoplasm of breast	3.0
C61	Malignant neoplasm of prostate	5.7
C760	Malignant neoplasm of head, face and neck	8.1
C81–C88	Lymphoma	8.5
C900	Myeloma	7.5
C91–C95	Leukaemia	9.6

D50–D89	III Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanism	8.3
D57	Sickle-cell disorders	25.0

E00–E90	IV Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases	9.2
E10–E14	Diabetes mellitus	9.3
E11	Type 2 diabetes mellitus	10.4
E66	Obesity	19.0
E70–E90	Metabolic disorders	6.2
E84	Cystic fibrosis	6.5

F00–F99	V Mental and behavioural disorders	11.5
F01,F03	Dementia	12.4
F20	Schizophrenia	16.3
F31	Bipolar affective disorder	12.9
F32	Depressive episode	12.5

G00–G99	VI Diseases of the nervous system	8.8
G122	Motor neuron disease	1.4
G20	Parkinson disease	8.9
G30	Alzheimer disease	9.6
G35	Multiple sclerosis	7.1
G40	Epilepsy	10.5
G80	Cerebral palsy	21.3

H00–H59	VII Diseases of the eye and adnexa	8.6

H60–H95	VIII Diseases of the ear and mastoid process	10.8

I00–I99	IX Diseases of the circulatory system	6.2
I05–I09	Chronic rheumatic heart diseases	3.7
I10	Hypertension	9.7
I25	Chronic ischaemic heart disease	6.0
I26–I28	Pulmonary heart disease and diseases of pulmonary circulation	9.1
I48	Atrial fibrillation and flutter	9.1
I50	Heart failure	6.2
I64	Stroke	7.7
I73	Other peripheral vascular diseases	7.1

J00–J99	X Diseases of the respiratory system	16.3
J12–J18	Pneumonia	27.5
J40–J47	Chronic lower respiratory diseases	10.2
J40–J42	Bronchitis	6.3
J43	Emphysema	7.1
J44	Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	9.5
J45	Asthma	18.2
J47	Bronchiectasis	15.3
J84	Other interstitial pulmonary diseases	9.2

K00–K93	XI Diseases of the digestive system	4.5
K70–K77	Diseases of liver	4.0

L00–L99	XII Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue	6.1

M00–M99	XIII Diseases of musculoskeletal system and connective tissue	11.3
M05–M06	Rheumatoid arthritis	17.0
M32	Systemic lupus erythematosus	16.3
M34	Systemic sclerosis	9.8

N00–N99	XIV Diseases of genitourinary system	8.9
N18	Chronic kidney disease	11.0

O00–O99	XV Complications of pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium	0.0

P00–P96	XVI Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period	0.0

Q00–Q99	XVII Congenital malformations and chromosomal abnormalities	4.8
Q90	Down Syndrome	9.0

R00–R99	XVIII Symptoms, signs, abnormal findings, ill–defined causes	5.5

V01–Y89	XX External causes of injury and poisoning	7.5
Y83	Surgical operation and other surgical procedures	10.7
Y841	Kidney dialysis	18.0
Y842	Radiological procedure and radiotherapy	9.8
Y883	Sequelae of surgical and medical procedures	14.6
¹ As a death certificate can contain multiple medical conditions, the percentages of COVID-19 deaths by condition do not sum to 100.

Open in Excel: Accompanying Conditions of Deaths from COVID-19, March 2020 – February 2022 Table 2 (XLS 14KB)

Visit Table VSD44 on PxStat

Number of accompanying medical conditions recorded on death certificates

This section considers COVID-19 deaths in terms of the number of accompanying medical conditions mentioned on each death certificate. As outlined above, each death certificate can list multiple medical conditions, one of which was COVID-19. Consequently, a death record with one cause of death details COVID-19 as the single cause of death and reports no other conditions. For further information, see Background Notes.

Table 3 details the number of conditions mentioned anywhere on the death certificate by age group. The number of COVID-19 deaths increased by age group, and generally also by the number of medical conditions mentioned.

An analysis of the medical conditions on the death records shows that:

Four in five deaths from COVID-19 had at least three conditions mentioned on the death certificate.
On average, death certificates listed 4.2 medical conditions per person.
A total of 183 deaths (or 3.4%) reported COVID-19 as the single cause of death (see Background Notes), whereas 5,201 deaths (or almost 97%) were certified with at least one other accompanying medical condition.
A total of 2,861 deaths from COVID-19 occurred in males (53%) and 2,523 in females (47%).
A third of male COVID-19 deaths were aged 85 and over, compared to half of female COVID-19 deaths.
Looking at the data by age, 91% of COVID-19 deaths occurred in persons aged 65 and over; 75% in persons aged 75 and over; and 42% in persons aged 85 and over.

See Table 3 and Figure 3 for details.

3. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2022 classified by age group and number of medical conditions reported on the death certificate

Go to Data

Why you can Trust the CSO

Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.

go to trust & transparency

Accompanying Conditions of Deaths from COVID-19, March 2020 – February 2022