The ‘superflu’ epidemic that has seen Britain’s hospitals declare critical incidents, schools close and the return of face mask rules is now spreading to Europe.
Health officials believe the UK could face its worst flu season on record, while cases are also surging in France and demand for masks and medicine is rising in Spain.
And an NHS boss said Britons should start wearing a face mask on public transport and in offices if they are coughing and sneezing but are well enough to go to work.
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents trusts, said it was vital for workers to ‘stop the chances of you giving your virus to somebody else’.
He urged people to ‘get back into the habit’ formed during the Covid-19 pandemic of wearing a mask when in public spaces – and even in the office if they have a cold.
A ‘drifted’ influenza A(H3N2) strain, also now known as ‘subclade K’ or ‘super flu’, is dominating cases and health leaders have warned the flu season started ‘unusually early’ this year – while virology experts are leading growing calls for mask wearing.
It comes as flu grips other countries around Europe – with French health officials revealing cases are increasing in every age group in the country; and pharmacists in Majorca reporting a surge in mask sales and flu medicine in the last three weeks.
Also today, schools in Britain were warned by the Government to only close in ‘extreme circumstances’ after some went into lockdown due to a ‘superflu’ outbreak.
Patients queue on trollies to get into A&E at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel today
A nurse administers the flu jab at the Ulster Hospital Vaccination Centre in Belfast last week
Headteachers are being told to consider the impact on education and wellbeing before an emergency shutdown and to do their best to minimise disruption.
The Department for Education said the decision was up to individual schools but staff must always maximise the number of children who are in face-to-face lessons.
Ministers accept that rising flu cases will increase absence levels but have also reminded teachers that school attendance is ‘critical for children’s life chances’.
It comes after headteachers across Britain warned of escalating sickness rates while some schools have banned singing in assemblies in a bid to stem the spread of flu.
A UK Government spokeswoman told the Daily Mail: ‘This will be a tough winter for our NHS and the latest figures confirm flu cases are at very high levels this year.
‘School attendance is critical for children’s life chances, and while it’s clear cases of flu are going to have an impact on attendance levels, we are clear school closures should only happen in extreme circumstances.
‘We provide clear guidance to help parents know exactly when to keep children home, and to help schools both manage children’s wellbeing and keep disruption to a minimum.’
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has declared a critical incident at four hospitals due to ‘exceptional’ numbers of patients with flu.
The trust said it was facing ‘extreme’ pressures and A&E was ‘overcrowded’ at Good Hope, Heartlands and Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham as well as Solihull Hospital.
This followed University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust also declaring a ‘critical incident’ as Royal Stoke Hospital and Stafford County Hospital face ‘extremely high demand’. Patients were urged to use A&E only for life-threatening conditions.
Sir Keir Starmer with NHS Providers chief executive Daniel Elkeles in London in October 2024
St Martin’s School in Caerphilly, Wales, has closed after more than 250 pupils and staff fell ill
Mr Elkeles suggested today that the UK should get back to the habits of the pandemic-era, telling Times Radio: ‘When you were talking about anything like Covid, I think we need to get back into the habit that if you are coughing and sneezing, but you’re not unwell enough to not go to work, then you must wear a mask when you’re in public spaces, including on public transport to stop the chances of you giving your virus to somebody else.
‘And we were all very good about infection control during Covid. And we really, really need to get back to that now.’
Presenter Kate McCann asked him: ‘So you’re saying if people are in the office today and they’re not poorly enough to be off, they can go to work, but they have got a cold, they’re snuffling, they are coughing, they should wear a mask in the office?’
And Mr Elkeles replied: ‘I think that would be very sensible to all their colleagues or probably their colleagues to say, please go home. But we really got to worry about the fact that this is a very nasty strain of flu. It spreads very easily.’
He also reiterated the importance of people getting their vaccine, saying there is a ‘tidal wave of flu’, adding: ‘This is a very big tidal wave. It’s a very nasty variant of flu that we have this year. And it’s much earlier in the winter season than normal.
‘So children are still at school. It’s warm and wet. So it’s perfect flu spreading conditions. So we’re kind of in quite uncharted, unprecedented territory for this time of the year.’
‘He told people to ‘sit up and listen’, adding that there was a need to have ‘a proper conversation with the public about, how do we take collective responsibility for trying to get the NHS out of this annual, very difficult few weeks.’
One of the worst-hit schools has been St Martin’s in Caerphilly, South Wales, where more than 250 pupils and staff fell ill and a temporary closure was imposed.
The secondary school’s headteacher Lee Jarvis told parents and carers about a ‘significant outbreak of flu-like illness’, saying there would be a ‘firebreak’ period.
During this time there will be a deep clean of the school, with online learning in place after 242 pupils and 12 members of staff were reported absent from St Martin’s.
Their symptoms including vomiting, diarrhoea, high temperatures, cough, headaches, fatigue and ‘general flu-like effects’ – with an average recovery time of seven days.
The school closed last Friday and is aiming to reopen today, but parents were urged to keep their children at home if they show any symptoms ‘even if mild’.
Public Health Wales confirmed it had been in contact with St Martin’s and understood ‘the school has done a risk assessment and decided to shut down temporarily’.
Elsewhere, Congleton High School in Cheshire shut for three days a fortnight ago after high numbers of pupils suffered flu-like symptoms.
Headteacher Heidi Thurland said the closure from November 26 to 28 was to carry out a deep clean, with teaching continuing on the Arbor remote learning platform.
Simon Kidwell, headteacher of Hartford Manor Primary School and Nursery in Nantwich, Cheshire, told BBC Breakfast: ‘The winter bugs spread really easily in schools.
‘We do know that we can do things to make sure that it’s safer in schools. But we’ve seen schools close to us in Cheshire close for three days, so it has been a real challenge this year.’
Late last month, Danesfield Middle School in Williton, Somerset, closed due to a norovirus outbreak among its pupils and staff.
The school said the closure aimed to ‘prevent further spread of the virus’, and so it could ‘carry out a deep clean and break the chain of infection’.
Meanwhile a primary school in Leeds has reduced singing in assemblies to cut the spread of flu, after one in six children were off or sent home last week.
Wigton Moor Primary School headteacher Elaine Bown said it was the ‘worst year’ for sickness since she started nearly 14 years ago.
She said 70 children were off sick or sent home from Wigton Moor last Monday with high temperatures or coughs – and one class saw almost every pupil off on one day.
Ms Bown told BBC Yorkshire: ‘We’ve had assemblies, but we’ve not sung in assemblies because again, we know that that’s something that spreads it quite a lot.
‘We are rehearsing for nativities at the moment and Christmas performances and we know from Covid that singing in schools is one of the worst spreaders.
‘But we are also trying hard not to cancel Christmas, we do not want to do that, so we are trying to make it as non-infectious as we can manage.’
In Northern Ireland, the principal of a school in County Londonderry said it is like ‘being back in Covid times’ after 170 pupils were off sick on one day.
Brian Guthrie of Ebrington Primary School said some children even had to go to hospital, telling BBC News NI: ‘It’s not just been flu, it’s been stomach bugs, very sore throats and illnesses in other ways as well.
‘But over the course of last week, it was very, very challenging with the number of pupils and staff off.
‘It took me back to 2020, to be quite honest, the attendance was actually worse last week than it would have been at any of the worst points, if you like, back in Covid times so, yeah, it was a bit of a shock.’
In Scotland, East Lothian Council said its pupil sickness absence rate in the last week of November was 8.1 per cent of the school population, compared to 5.3 per cent in the same week last year.
It comes as medical leaders called for an end to strikes, saying the action by resident doctors will ’cause mayhem’ as a virulent strain of flu sweeps across the country.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges warned that cases of the ‘particularly virulent flu taking hold’ are expected to peak just as the doctors walk out from December 17 to 22.
The academy, which represents the UK’s royal colleges, has called on the militant British Medical Association to tell hospital bosses how many doctors plan to be off so they can plan accordingly. It also urged both parties to ‘end the painful dispute’.
‘Although there is no legal obligation to tell employers if they are planning on taking industrial action, this strike is being organised for what is typically one of the busiest weeks of the year in the NHS,’ the academy said in a statement seen by The Times.
‘First, the staff who are working will be trying to get patients home for Christmas. Second, and perhaps more significantly, there is considerable additional pressure being caused by a particularly virulent flu virus taking hold.
‘Today there are ten times more patients in hospital beds with flu than there were at the same time two years ago. If managers were told which resident doctors are intending to take action, it would at least allow them to plan safely for emergency cover.’
A troublesome mutant strain of the flu hitting the UK is believed to be more infectious and leading to more severe illness and hospital admissions than last year – while also leaving people vulnerable to other catching other seasonal viruses at the same time.
Officials believe surging flu rates are being largely driven by a spike among children at school aged five to 14, with H3N2 accounting for the vast majority of cases. There are now ten times as many patients in hospital compared with the same time in 2023.
Concerns are mounting at the NHS amid a record number of people in hospital with flu in England for the time of year and fears of an ‘unprecedented wave’ of infections.
NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey has warned the country could face its worst flu season on record, after Australia suffered the same earlier this year – and believes the NHS faces pressures that ‘in a lot of ways will be like the Covid period’.
Professor Nicola Lewis, World Influenza Centre director at the Francis Crick Institute, said: ‘We haven’t seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual. H3 is always a hotter virus, it’s a nastier virus, it’s more impactful on the population.’
Amid the so-called ‘flunami’, the UK Health Security Agency said masks ‘continue to be a useful tool in limiting the spread respiratory viruses in some situations’.
Officials reissued guidance saying anyone feeling ill should wear a mask because it can reduce the number of particles with viruses released from the mouth and nose.
They also said masks can protect the person wearing them from becoming infected with other respiratory viruses such as Covid-19 or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Mandatory mask rules have been imposed over recent weeks in parts of hospitals in London, Lincolnshire, Shropshire and Oxfordshire amid alarm at infection numbers.
In London, three times as many people are in hospital with flu compared to the same time last year – with the NHS citing the capital’s low vaccination rates as an issue.
Last Thursday, an NHS England board meeting was told by chief executive Sir Jim Mackey that by the end of this week there could be between 5,000 and 8,000 beds occupied by flu patients. That could exceed the highest number on record, 5,400.
Some 1,717 flu patients were in beds each day last week, more than 50 per cent higher than last year. But an average of 259 patients were in a London hospital bed each day last week with flu – three times the average of 89 this time last year.
NHS Ayrshire and Arran has cancelled ‘routine visiting’ across all its hospitals amid ‘significant pressure’ due to a ‘sharp rise in viral respiratory infections, including flu’.
NHS chiefs also warned that London was in the grip of an unprecedented and escalating flu wave with already cases at a record high and ‘no peak yet in sight’.
Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, told the Daily Mail: ‘I think any requests to wear masks should be looked upon as an extension of the old ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ advice for flu, which was commonly issued every winter before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19.
‘Wearing masks won’t do any harm, but anyone who is ill with flu is unlikely to be able to get out of bed, let alone mix with people outside the home.
‘We’ve known for many years that children are an engine of spread for flu, and the recent data do show increasing cases of infection in educational settings.
‘However, I think the problem most likely to arise is staff getting ill. If there are not enough teachers able to come to work, a school cannot operate safely.
‘Ultimately, we have a vaccine against flu and we have a degree of population-wide immunity which will blunt the severity; we did not have a vaccine to use against Covid, so we have weapons at our disposal to tackle this.
‘People should get their vaccine, especially if they’re entitled to it free on the NHS – just because someone may have had a vaccine last year, does not mean they are covered this year.’