Unwell adults should stay at home and wear a mask if they have to go outside, health chiefs said today amid warnings the NHS is facing more pressure than it did during the peak of the pandemic.
The advice, issued by the UK Health Security Agency, also urges parents to keep their child out of school or nursery if they are ill and have a high temperature — classed as 38C or more.
The actions will help minimise the spread of Covid, flu and scarlet fever which are ‘circulating at high levels’ and are ‘likely’ to keep rising in the coming weeks, it said.
It comes amid stark warnings that the delays for care caused by the NHS crisis are killing 500 patients every week, with top doctors telling Britons that the situation is ‘much worse’ than the darkest days of the Covid pandemic.
Unwell adults should stay at home and wear a mask if they have to go outside, health chiefs said today amid warnings the NHS is facing more pressure than it did during the peak of the pandemic
This map shows the NHS organisations which have declared critical incidents within the last few days
The flu-nami has swept across the NHS in England, the latest round of health service data shows, with over 3,800 admissions for the virus on December 23. Graph shows the number of beds on wards taken up by those with flu (red) and the number of beds occupied due to the virus in critical care (blue)
NHS England data today showed that an average of 63,000 staff were off work every day in the week to Christmas (red line). Around 8,000 of the absences were due to Covid (blue line)
Ambulance handover delays peaked on December 19 with more than 3,000 patients forced to wait over an hour in the back of an emergency vehicle unable to be offloaded to a hospital bed
Customers — some wearing face masks — wait outside a Boots store in west London today amid fears around the ‘twindemic’ of Covid and flu
Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at UKHSA, said adults should ‘try to stay home when unwell’.
Those that do have to go out should ‘wear a face covering’, she said.
Sick Britons were also told not to visit healthcare setting ‘unless urgent’ and avoid vulnerable people.
Professor Hopkins said: ‘It’s important to minimise the spread of infection in schools and other education and childcare settings as much as possible.’
The ‘back-to-school advice’ also told parents to keep their child out of school or nursery if they have a high temperature.
Professor Hopkins said: ‘If your child is unwell and has a fever, they should stay home from school or nursery until they feel better and the fever has resolved.’
She also urged parents to teach youngsters good hand hygiene by practicing regular handwashing at home with soap and warm water.
Children should also be told to catch coughs and sneezes in tissues and then bin them to help stop illness from spreading, Professor Hopkins said.
The UKHSA also urged parents to ensure eligible children — which includes all primary school children, some secondary children and those aged two and three on August 31 2022 — get a flu vaccine.
Latest data shows just 48 per cent of primary school children had received a flu vaccine by November despite hospitalisation rates due to the virus remaining high.
Professor Hopkins said: ‘Flu vaccination is still available for all eligible groups and is the best protection against the virus.
Youngsters who are ill and have a high temperature — classed as 38C or more — ‘should stay home from school or nursery until they feel better and the fever has resolved’, the UHSA said
‘We have seen good uptake in older age groups but vaccination among young children remains low.
‘Flu can be very unpleasant and in some cases can lead to more serious illness.
‘Getting your child vaccinated protects them and others they come into contact with, and it’s still not too late.’
It comes amid warnings that the NHS is on a ‘knife edge’ and is facing its worst ever winter due to an A&E crisis that is killing hundreds of patients every week.
Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, told Sky News ‘urgent action’ to ease pressure on the NHS with staff across the board warning that the current situation is ‘worse than it’s ever been’.
He said: ‘I know that people watching this will say, “well every winter you have doctors on that say that this winter is terrible, that it’s normal winter pressures”.
‘But there is a complete acceptance from all colleagues now that this is different from all previous winters — and we need urgent action now.’
He added: ‘This situation is much worse than we experienced under the COVID pandemic at its peak.
‘And so we need to think carefully about how we can manage this and I think we need some urgent actions.’
Another senior medic warned that up to 500 patients could be dying every week because of the ‘intolerable’ A&E crisis wreaking havoc on the NHS.
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