UK health experts urge you not to put others at risk this Christmas if you have flu symptoms Health

[ad_1]

While the draw for festive parties and family gatherings may be strong, experts have reiterated calls for people feeling unwell with flu-like symptoms to stay home.

Hospital admissions for influenza continue to rise, according to data for England from the UK’s Health Security Agency, with the highest levels seen in people over 85 and children under five.

The overall weekly hospitalization rate for influenza increased to 8.27 per 100,000 in the week of Dec. 12, from 6.80 per 100,000 in the previous week, with the highest rate of hospitalizations observed in the Northeast.

The UKHSA’s latest report notes that “Emergency department attendance for influenza-like illnesses continues to increase nationally, for all age groups and regions.”

Dr Mary Ramsey, director of public health programs at the UKHSA, called on people to avoid mixing if they were unwell. “Both Covid and influenza can cause serious illness or even death in the most vulnerable people in our communities, so it is also important to avoid contact with other people if you are sick in order to help stop the spread of infection over the Christmas and New Year period,” she said.

A lot of hospitals, including this one, are under pressure, Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, said on Friday. “I look at the numbers especially in the Northwest, where I work, and we’re seeing the flu aggressively and very early,” he said.

Semple said the UKHSA’s advice was correct. “If you develop symptoms — runny nose, sore throat, fever, headache, and feel flu-like — please stay home,” he said. “You don’t know if the person sitting next to you or in the store might have an underlying cancer or other susceptibility.”

Other precautions to consider, Semple said, include wearing face masks in crowded places where ventilation is poor. “But the basics are also very important – catching coughs and sneezes into disposable tissues and washing your hands when you come home,” he added. “Don’t touch things in public and then eat: because that puts your hands on your face again.”

Semple also dismissed arguments about the “immunity debt” that suggest Covid lockdowns have weakened people’s immune systems.

“The simple fact that you haven’t been exposed to the flu for two years means that if it spreads, you will catch it later,” he said. “Not that you have somehow weakened your immune system. If you had it two years ago, you would have had a bad flu two years ago, too.”

Semple said immunization is important for preventing diseases like influenza, but said eroding confidence in vaccination may be behind lower uptake in the most disadvantaged areas, including children and pregnant women.

“I think it’s understandable if you accept that there is a degree of fatigue among the population in general and that there is an enormous amount of misinformation that you really need to deal with head on,” he said. “And I think that’s something where there is room for improvement.”

[ad_2]