There were 139 deaths involving the coronavirus in teaching and educational professionals between March and December 2020 last year, according to new official data.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) has concluded that death rates for teachers are broadly similar to “professions with similar broad economic and educational backgrounds”.

Read: DfE can’t say how many teachers have died of Covid

Reassurance: Teachers told they have no increased Covid death risk

Coronavirus: School staff ‘at serious risk’ from pupils’ return

Boris Johnson: ‘Schools are safe’

The data for “teaching and educational professionals” refers to those qualified to teach in a wide range of settings from primary schools through to universities.

But it does not include other jobs in schools such as administration.

The ONS figure of 139 is for teaching and education professional deaths among 20 to 64 year-olds registered between 9 March and 28 December 2020 in England and Wales.

“For both sexes, rates of death involving Covid-19 for this group were statistically significantly lower than the rate of death involving Covid-19 among those of the same age and sex, with 18.4 deaths per 100,000 males (66 deaths) and 9.8 deaths per 100,000 females (73 deaths), compared with 31.4 and 16.8 deaths per 100,000 in the population among males and females respectively,” the ONS report published this morning says.

The ONS was able to calculate a separate total for secondary teachers and found that 52 had died from Covid last year - accounting for more than a third (37.4 per cent) of the education professional death toll.

“With 39.2 deaths per 100,000 males (29 deaths) and 21.2 deaths per 100,000 females (23 deaths), rates of death involving COVID-19 in secondary education teaching professionals were not statistically significantly different than those of the same age and sex in the wider population,” the report says.