There's not one way to collect these stats, see the section "ONS and PHE COVID-19 deaths data are produced in different ways and have different purposes:" in [0

There's not one way to collect these stats, see the section "ONS and PHE COVID-19 deaths data are produced in different ways and have different purposes:" in [0] on what the UK gathers how. Neither of which changes the excess deaths resulting from the pandemic. It's just a matter of timeliness in some cases and up to the consumer of such data to decide which is suitable for which analysis (and honestly a moot point, no country tests enough to warrant the assumption that the odd accidental death that is later corrected would be worse than the effects of undercounting). [0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathssolelyfromcovid19ratherthandeathswithin28daysofapositivetest https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre...