Individuals who catch flu and Covid on the similar time this winter are twice as prone to die than those that solely have coronavirus, in line with the UK Health Safety Company chief govt, Dr Jenny Harries.
The previous deputy chief medical officer for England warned that the UK faces an “unsure” winter – with each flu and Covid-19 circulating for the primary time – and urged individuals to take up each the coronavirus and flu jabs if eligible.
Requested how nervous the general public must be about flu this winter, she instructed Sky’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday: “We must be nervous about flu every winter. I feel individuals nonetheless don’t realise it may be a deadly illness.
“However I feel the vital factor about this winter is, we’re prone to see flu, for the primary time in any actual numbers, co-circulating with Covid. So the dangers of catching each collectively nonetheless stay. And when you try this, then early proof suggests that you’re twice as prone to die from having two collectively than simply having Covid alone.
“So I feel it’s an unsure winter forward – that’s not a prediction, it’s an unsure characteristic – however we do know that flu instances have been decrease within the earlier 12 months so immunity and the pressure varieties are somewhat extra unsure,” she mentioned.
Harries additionally warned that the UK may have a multi-strain flu this 12 months, with lowered immunity, as final 12 months’s Covid restrictions meant that ranges of the virus have been extraordinarily low.
She mentioned that on common, about 11,000 individuals will die from flu annually. “The distinction right here is as a result of we now have, when you like, skipped a 12 months nearly with flu, it’s doable we’d see multi-strain flu – we often get one pressure predominating,” she added.
Harries mentioned there are 4 strains of virus on this 12 months’s flu vaccine, after taking recommendation from the World Well being Group (WHO), the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and seeking to nations within the southern hemisphere, the place winter and subsequently flu season arrives earlier.
“So we’ve bought a fairly good array in our toolbox to attempt to hit whichever one turns into dominant but it surely might be a couple of this 12 months, and folks’s immunity might be decrease. So I feel the actual trick right here is to get vaccinated in each Covid and flu, however clearly to proceed to do these good hygiene behaviours that we’ve been practising all by Covid”, Harries added.
Harries additionally mentioned that making youngsters put on masks at school wouldn’t be on the high of her checklist of Covid-safe measures.
“I feel the vital factor is we must always make certain youngsters aren’t at school if they’re truly infectious. We’ve bought an excellent testing programme and we all know that initially of the time period we anticipated to see a surge in instances”, she instructed the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Present.
Harries additionally mentioned the dominance of the Delta variant globally has triggered different coronavirus variants to “turn out to be extinct”, however warned we nonetheless have to “keep alert”.
The NHS goals to immunise a report 35 million individuals this winter, the most ambitious programme of flu jabs in its historical past. Free flu shots can be found for about 30 million frontline well being and social care staff, individuals aged 50 and over, youngsters as much as college 12 months 11, those that are pregnant and people at scientific threat.