1. What does the NHS fear?
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The English branch of the NHS is warning the country of a ‘Worst Case Scenario December’, or a December in which everything could go wrong. The reason is the number of people who are currently in hospital due to the Super Flu.
Last week, 2,660 people were in hospital due to the flu. That is exceptionally high for early December.
The speed at which the virus is spreading is a concern for the NHS. Last week there were 55 percent more patients than the week before, a significant increase. The graph below shows that the level is already above that of other years. This concerns admissions to English hospitals. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not included.
The upward trend is therefore clearly visible. According to them, the peak in the number of hospital admissions is not yet in sight.
At the same time, the number of people admitted due to the norovirus (stomach flu) has increased by 35 percent in a week.
2. What do you notice about the Super Flu?
Complaints you may experience include fever, headache, nausea, and general malaise. Basically all the known symptoms associated with the flu, in short.
Whether the complaints are more severe or longer lasting than with normal flu has not yet been investigated, because it is still too early for that. What is now certain is that the virus is spreading faster than in other years.
Most people get better on their own, but the virus does pose a risk to the vulnerable and elderly.
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3. Why is this a problem for the NHS in particular?
“The NHS has been struggling in the winter months for years,” says correspondent Anne Saenen. “Because more people have to go to hospital because of the flu, waiting lists for care are becoming even longer than they already are. Ambulances also take longer to get somewhere.”
“The problems in the NHS started around 2010. The Conservative government at the time made significant cuts in healthcare to close a gap in the budget. Since then, little has been invested in healthcare, which has created a major staff shortage.”
“After that, Brexit happened, which meant that nurses from Europe no longer came to England. As a result, the staff shortage and therefore the pressure on healthcare only increased further. The result: if a major flu wave spreads across England, the entire healthcare system immediately has a problem,” says Saenen.
4. And doctors aren’t that happy, right?
“Not exactly, no,” says Saenen, “and that is why there will be a strike by so-called junior doctors from next Wednesday. They are not satisfied with the pay they receive for their work and have announced a strike. It does not look good for the NHS.”
In 2022, nurses stopped all work:
“It doesn’t look good for the Labor Party government either. It promised at the last election to solve waiting times in healthcare and invest more money. Labor is therefore angry about the strike. It must now be said that there are indeed major problems in healthcare, but also that hospitals like to say this to keep up the pressure on politicians.”
5. What do the English do to keep things manageable?
Some hospitals ask visitors to wear a face mask. And for the rest, the focus is on vaccination: in addition to the vulnerable and the elderly, vaccinations are also offered to school children.
“School-age children receive a vaccination every year in October,” says Saenen. “They can choose between an injection or a nasal spray.” Viruses circulate widely in schools. By injecting children, they can protect others and the NHS.
In any case, the flu shot is now very popular. “Non-vulnerable people can also get the jab, but they will have to pay for it. Some people have not yet responded to that October call, but are now seeing the warnings from the NHS and are getting it quickly.”
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6. Why the focus on vaccinations?
“The English are very careful about containing diseases, especially in London. In the capital, people live so close together that infection with a certain disease can quickly lead to an outbreak. When the polio virus was found in London’s sewage water in 2022, the authorities immediately called on residents to get a vaccination,” says Saenen.
“Everything is to protect the population, protect the NHS and probably also to ensure that people stay in work. Of course, this does not only apply to London. Vaccinations, including the flu jab, are also being distributed in other cities and rural areas.”
7. What about the Super Flu in the Netherlands?
The short answer: it doesn’t seem to exist here (yet). In fact: “There is currently little flu in the Netherlands at all,” says Harald Wychgel of the RIVM. “There are few people with flu-like complaints and little flu virus has been detected in the samples from people who visited the GP.”
In November, RTL Nieuws spoke to Wychgel about the news that the flu season had started earlier than normal in several European countries. The vaccine may also work less well against the variant that is circulating this year. The latter now appears not to be the case, according to Wychgel. The vaccine works just as well and this is evident from research conducted in the United Kingdom.
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Flu season seems to start earlier than normal in Europe, but no signals yet in the Netherlands
