Health officials in England say they have not recorded any cases of influenza in seven weeks as the coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions continue in the country.
“The decrease in flu cases this year is likely due to changes in our behavior, such as social distancing, face coverings, and hand-washing, as well as the reduction in international travel,” said Dr. Vanessa Saliba, the head of flu at Public Health England. “In England, more than 15 million people receive the flu jab every year, which helps protect them from flu and also stops them spreading it to others.”
Saliba said this year’s flu shot program is on pace to break records.
“This season’s immunization program is on track to be the most successful ever, with the highest levels of vaccine uptake recorded for those 65 years and over, 2- and 3-year-olds, and healthcare workers,” Saliba said.
FLU SEASON RECORDS LOWEST RATE OF HOSPITALIZATIONS ON RECORD
Restrictions related to stopping the coronavirus, such as social distancing and masking, have also contributed to the lack of flu activity, health officials said.
Public Health England samples thousands of swab tests every week to survey the prevalence of respiratory diseases within the population. Of the 685,243 samples analyzed since the first week of January, not one tested positive for flu.
Those results come after only one case was recorded in the week leading up to the end of December, making it one total positive case in the last eight weeks.
Public Health England’s findings were seemingly backed up by data gathered by the Royal College of General Practitioners’ research and surveillance center, which found the rate of influenza-like symptoms stood at 0.5-1.3 per 100,000 people in December, well below the country’s five-year average.
The lack of a flu season has some health officials wondering if the country should change how it approaches battling the flu in the future.
“There’s been no flu season anywhere in the world this year, including the U.K.,” said Christina Pagel, a professor of operational research at University College London. “Flu is one of the big reasons that the NHS struggles every winter. But what I think is really interesting is that people say we live with flu deaths every year and kind of assumed they were unavoidable. Yet, clearly, they’re not.”
Pagel said that national lockdowns might not be an acceptable approach to flu season but that this year’s anomaly shows there is more health officials can do to combat the flu.
“If we wanted to, we’ve shown we can reduce flu deaths to pretty much zero. I don’t think that the damage we have done through lockdown is anything that anyone would support to prevent the flu, but it does bring into question the idea of whether there is anything that we can do,” Pagel said.
Pagel said she believes some coronavirus policies, such as social distancing, masking, and widespread availability of sanitizer, could be strategies to look into using in the future.
“I don’t know if it’s the social distancing or the mask-wearing that’s done it [in reducing flu rates], but I think we should at least be having those conversations,” Pagel said. “Another thing, especially in Britain, is this attitude that if you’re sick, you still go in to work. We need to change that. We’ve shown that a lot of people can work remotely.”
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No matter what policy approach England decides to use going forward, Pagel said she believes the coronavirus pandemic has taught health officials valuable lessons when it comes to the flu.
“I think it’s an unintended consequence of COVID that we’ve realiZed flu isn’t this unavoidable threat that we thought it was,” Pagel said.
