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The UK Health Security Agency argued the COVID-19 injection death data is better hidden from the public lest it cause distress, anger, misinformation or vaccine hesitancy.

The UK’s health security watchdog has refused to publish data that could link COVID-19 injections to excess deaths, prompting criticism it is engaged in a “cover-up”.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) argued that publishing the figures would cause “distress and anger” in mourning relatives if a connection was established, The Telegraph reported over the weekend.

The disputed dataset, which has already been shared with pharmaceutical companies, was requested under freedom of information laws by the campaign group UsForThem.

UKHSA rejected the request, citing a variety of reasons for its refusal. Publishing the data might upset bereaved families, the watchdog argued, or “could lead to misinformation”. Alternatively, releasing the figures might “have an adverse impact on vaccine uptake” among the British public, the agency claimed.

“Public health officials also argued that publishing the data risked damaging the well-being and mental health of the families and friends of people who died,” according to The Telegraph.

Another reason UKHSA cited for its refusal was the risk that individuals might be identified, even though UsForThem had requested anonymised data.

Following a two-year dispute over the FOI request, the UK’s Information Commissioner ruled in the UKHSA’s favour, allowing the data to remain hidden from the public.

Calls for Accountability Intensify

The ruling has intensified calls for accountability from campaigners and political figures. As reported by The Telegraph:

Last year, a cross-party group expressed alarm about “growing public and professional concerns” over the UK’s rates of excess deaths since 2020.

In a letter to UKHSA and Department for Health, the MPs and peers said that potentially critical data — which map the date of people’s Covid vaccine doses to the date of their deaths — had been released to pharmaceutical companies but not put into the public domain.

They argued that the data should be released “on the same anonymised basis that it was shared with the pharmaceutical groups, and there seems to be no credible reason why that should not be done immediately”.

Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, has argued that withholding the data undermines the confidence of the British public.

“We knew there was concern about excess deaths, which is why we called for an inquiry,” he said. “Instead, the unelected quango UKHSA is involved in a scandalous cover-up of how and why people are dying.”

“This is totally unacceptable, and the Health Secretary must overrule them,” he added. “If we are not prepared to learn lessons about why people are dying, what sort of society are we?”

Reform UK — which currently leads most polls with around 33% support and is seen as a strong favourite for the 2029 general election — has promised to launch a public inquiry into excess deaths and injuries linked to Covid injections.

Government ‘withholding data that may link Covid jab to excess deaths’

UKHSA says best not to know the truth, in case it may upset us

Unacceptable https://t.co/nHQfhhXWWf

— Richard Tice MP 🇬🇧 (@TiceRichard) November 16, 2025

‘Perverse’: UsForThem Legal Director

Ben Kingsley, legal director of UsForThem, also criticised UKHSA, saying its stonewalling “reveals a desperation that this data should not, in any form, see the light of day”.

“It is perverse for UKHSA to argue that this data should not be released because the public could feel distressed or angry if patterns or correlations were to be identified,” he said.

Kingsley added that the agency’s reasoning echoed previous public-health fiascos, making specific reference to the infected blood scandal, in which thousands of UK citizens contracted HIV or hepatitis C.

“We learnt that for years and years the government didn’t think the public could handle the truth, so they kept it from us,” he said. “Now we are seeing very similar behaviour from the UKHSA.”

A spokesman for UKHSA defended the decision, stating, “Protecting patient confidentiality is of critical importance. Releasing this data presented a real possibility that it could be used to identify individuals, which could result in significant distress.”

The Death Data in Australia

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, over 95% of Australians aged 16 and over received at least two COVID-19 injections.

Survey data from the Melbourne Institute, however, revealed that by mid 2021, 16 per cent of Australians were unwilling to be injected and a further 13 per cent were unsure about the procedure, indicating that a significant share of the population received the shots under duress.

A BMJ study published later the same year found that 15% of Australians “were either unlikely or very unlikely” to agree to the injection, indicating that up to two million did so despite marked hesitancy.

The Australian Immunisation Handbook states that, for consent to be legally valid, any treatment “must be given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation”.

After receiving almost 1,000 reports of Australians dying soon following a COVID-19 injection, the Therapeutic Goods Administration acknowledged a causal link in just 14 cases.

Even so, a freedom of information release earlier this year revealed that the TGA did not investigate 35 same-day COVID-19 injection deaths, casting doubt on the regulator’s official tally.

The Daily Declaration contacted the TGA for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

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