Vaccination reporting differences

What do different figures on UK Covid-19 vaccinations tell us?

Statistics producers can make many different reports. Those reports can have distinctions, dependent on analytical choices. I look at two reporting differences for Covid-19 vaccinations in England and Wales.

Why do the daily and weekly NHS England stats differ?

NHS England produce two sets of reports on vaccinations: by day and by week. The latest weekly report goes up to 30th May 2021. These extensive analyses show vaccinations by gender, age, ethnicity and more.

We can compare those figures to the daily report for the same date. Daily reports contain only headline statistics:

• Daily: 32,938,496 first doses and 21,719,461 second doses.
• Weekly: 32,756,725 first doses and 21,609,411 second doses.

First, there is a timing difference on data extraction. The weekly report is for vaccinations administered between 8th December and 30th May. Analysts ran that extract on 1st June. That includes vaccinations done on 30th May, but reported a day later. As the daily report states:

Not all vaccinations administered up to this date will be included in these figures.

Second, there are exclusions in the weekly report. These reports only include living residents with an NHS number. That means numbers of vaccinated people could…