Influenza cases and deaths (FOI)

Request

Please provide the statistics from years 2015 to 2021 for the following:

A

Confirmed influenza cases.

B

Influenza deaths.

C

Hospital admissions from influenza.

Response

A and C

Information is available publically on www.gov.je in the Jersey Seasonal Influenza-like Illness Statistics 2019-20 report, therefore Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. Please see the following links:

Jersey Seasonal Influenza 2018 to 2019 (gov.je)

Jersey Seasonal Influenza 2019 to 2020 (gov.je)

An updated version of the report for the flu season 2020-2021 will be published within the next 12 weeks and is therefore exempt under Article 36 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

B

Deaths have been digitally registered since 1st January 2018 and detailed statistics can be extracted from that date only.

The data prior to 1 January 2018 is held in separate volumes of parish paper registers. To extract the data would require the manual search of every page of all 12 Parish Registers for each year requested. Each year there are 800 to 900 death registrations made across all 12 parishes. It is estimated that this would take more than 12.5 hours to complete Therefore Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

From 1 January 2018 the number of deaths where Influenza is registered as a cause of death on the death registration are:

Articles applied

Article 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.

Article 36 Information intended for future publication

(1) Information is qualified exempt information if, at the time when the request for the information is made, the information is being held by a public authority with a view to its being published within 12 weeks of the date of the request.

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive.

(1)   A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.