The NHS risks being overwhelmed by rapidly increasing flu cases and is on the brink of a crisis unprecedented since the Covid pandemic. That is, at least, what the media is claiming. You could be forgiven for thinking a time machine had transported us back to 2024. Or 2023. Or 2022. Or indeed any other year you care to select.

However, when you dig down into the figures, it is not at all clear that the flu situation is so much worse than in previous years. Yes, hospital admission rates for flu are 10.0 per 100,000 of the population are higher than during the same period in the past few years. But this reflects the fact that the flu season seems to have started a little earlier. If you look at the trends in the weekly surveillance reports, the pattern does not look out of line with previous years. Indeed, the rate of increase in hospital admissions has reduced slightly in the past week. This is also reflected in the daily positivity rate for all flu tests (which has typically been a good indicator of overall flu prevalence) which has been stable for the past few days.

Whether or not we are approaching the final peak of the flu outbreak remains to be seen. Some previous years have seen more than one peak during the season. But whether we look at hospital admissions, positivity rates or other surveillance measures, we are a very long way from the rates seen last year or in the winter of 2022-23. Last week the NHS England reported that there were 2,660 patients in hospital with flu. With over 1,000 hospitals that works out to an average of 3 patients per hospital. Worrying, of course, especially given the underlying pressures facing the NHS but hard to see this as an unprecedented crisis.

Judging by messaging coming out of NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the aim of the scare stories seems to be to encourage more people to wear masks and to increase take-up of flu vaccinations across the general population. The vaccine push this year has focused on children, perhaps reflecting the particularly high rates of flu seen in school-age groups.

The evidentiary basis for both responses is unclear. The best research does not provide good evidence that masks are an effective way of preventing spread of respiratory infections. And as for flu vaccinations, the past few years have seen a rapid increase in take-up among school aged children. By the end of October this year, around 33% of primary school and 21% of secondary school children had received a flu vaccine. In 2022, the equivalent figure was just 21% for primary school children while there was no flu vaccination program at all for secondary school children.

The question that might reasonably be asked is this: if vaccination rates among children have increased so dramatically, why are we continuing to see such high rates of flu among children?

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David Paton is a Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School.

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