diff --git a/src/Interpreters/InterpreterSelectQuery.cpp b/src/Interpreters/InterpreterSelectQuery.cpp
index 3008c55973d..da6ad7ab102 100644
--- a/src/Interpreters/InterpreterSelectQuery.cpp
+++ b/src/Interpreters/InterpreterSelectQuery.cpp
@@ -1285,8 +1285,11 @@ void InterpreterSelectQuery::executeFetchColumns(
         const auto & desc = query_analyzer->aggregates()[0];
         const auto & func = desc.function;
         std::optional<UInt64> num_rows{};
+
         if (!query.prewhere() && !query.where())
+        {
             num_rows = storage->totalRows(settings);
+        }
         else // It's possible to optimize count() given only partition predicates
         {
             SelectQueryInfo temp_query_info;
@@ -1296,6 +1299,7 @@ void InterpreterSelectQuery::executeFetchColumns(
 
             num_rows = storage->totalRowsByPartitionPredicate(temp_query_info, *context);
         }
+
         if (num_rows)
         {
             AggregateFunctionCount & agg_count = static_cast<AggregateFunctionCount &>(*func);
@@ -1790,7 +1794,7 @@ void InterpreterSelectQuery::executeMergeAggregated(QueryPlan & query_plan, bool
     auto merging_aggregated = std::make_unique<MergingAggregatedStep>(
             query_plan.getCurrentDataStream(),
             std::move(transform_params),
-            settings.distributed_aggregation_memory_efficient,
+            settings.distributed_aggregation_memory_efficient && storage && storage->isRemote(),
             settings.max_threads,
             settings.aggregation_memory_efficient_merge_threads);