Health chiefs have warned that lockdowns and social distancing could have led to a drop in immunity to seasonal influenza which could result in the highest number of flu deaths this winter in 50 years. The Telegraph has more.
More than 35 million people will be offered flu jabs this winter, amid concern that prolonged restrictions on social contact have left Britain with little immunity.
Officials fear that this winter could see up to 60,000 flu deaths – the worst figure in Britain since the 1968 Hong Kong Flu pandemic – without strong uptake of vaccines.
There is also concern about the effectiveness of this year’s jabs, because the lack of flu last year made it harder for scientists to sample the virus and predict the dominant strains.
Health chiefs said the measures introduced over the past 18 months to protect the country against coronavirus would now put the public at greater risk of flu.
The NHS has already begun the rollout of flu jabs and COVID-19 boosters. Health chiefs will urge everyone eligible to take up their chance, with the launch of a major campaign on Friday to drive take-up.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer, said: “Not many people got flu last year because of COVID-19 restrictions, so there isn’t as much natural immunity in our communities as usual.
“We will see flu circulating this winter; it might be higher than usual and that makes it a significant public health concern.”
Officials highlighted modelling from the Academy of Medical Sciences, which suggests this winter the UK could see between 15,000 and 60,000 flu deaths.
This compares with an average of 11,000 deaths a year in the five years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The modelling warns that this winter could be far worse than normal for flu, precisely because of the physical distancing measures implemented over the last 18 months.
Worth reading in full.
Is this going to be the excuse for another national lockdown next month? Not to prevent the NHS being ‘overwhelmed’ by Covid patients, but by flu patients? If lockdowns beget lockdowns, does that mean we’re trapped in a never-ending lockdown cycle?


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All testing was for Covid not flu. Hospitals & Doctors ordered to attribute all to Covid. It does not mean there was no flu. Also the PCR did not differentiate between the Flu and Covid.
Right. That 60,000 – that’d be part of the ‘normal annual wastage’ of 600,000 from ”all causes”, wouldn’t it?
Australia had negligible flu in winter 2021z
I wonder if they’ll try a “Clap for the NHS” again this year?
Even the sheeple got a little fed up with it last year and it waned as the weeks went by.
I was glad it ended as I got fed-up with playing my audio mix of short bursts of clapping, interspersed with bleating sheep and seals barking, out of the front window.
Trouble is the sheeple might have short memories and embrace it once again – unless of course they, their family or friends, have tried to get a doctors or hospital appointment recently that is…
Hanoi Van-Tam scaremongering
It’s almost magical the way there was no ‘flu last winter. Nothing whatsoever to do with the Government deciding to identify all respiratory illnesses as “Covid” to bump up the figures and generate fear.
Move along ……
1. Flu didn’t go away last winter: the manipulative b’s just called it Covid.(See PHE Newsletter October 2020).
2. Project Fear is now going full throttle to convince the weak-minded that another lockdown will be “prudent” and in their best interests.
3. Since when has naturally acquired immunity only been very short term?
They have been diagnosing flu as covid for almost 2 years, now they are going to bring back the flu to conceal the death and sickness caused by the jabs destroying people’s immune systems.
“does that mean we’re trapped in a never ending lockdown cycle ?”
The answer is Yes , some of us saw all this from the start but were comprehensively ignored.
Good work Toby and team, you seem to be getting the picture at last, although it’s almost too late now.
Anyone aware of the US Army trials that concluded the flu vax significantly increased the risk of getting coronavirus?
So it could be as bad as it was 5 years ago – that is what they are saying. So not apocalyptic even if their modelling is right.
This new vaccine, according to reports I have read, has not been tested quite so thouroughly as previous flu vaccines and the effectiveness is said to be below 50%. There is also the question of interaction with CV antibodies or indeed the Covid vaccine itself.
And my suspicions are further aroused by the new “scare Britain” advertising campaign that is just starting, straight out of the Covid playbook.
No doubt those are the same Health Chiefs who recommended/mandated most of the “Rules” for covid in the first place! Jesus wept.
Beam me up, I’m living in the wrong universe.
Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. The lockdown cannot prevent flu and be useless against corona and vice versa. The lockdown and masks did nothing to anyone’s immunity. Possibly the increased prevalence of corona infections provided some kind of cross-immunity against the flu. Or as may be, most of the flu cases have been simply mislabeled (people getting infected with both flu and corona, and every case being attributed to corona – because everyone tested for corona and nobody tested for flu)
https://rumble.com/vnbv86-winning-the-war-against-therapeutic-nihilism-and-trusted-treatments-vs-unte.html
Everyone concerned by what lies ahead for us needs to look at this courageous talk by Peter McCullough, who confronts with truth, the lies and deceptions used against the population by their governments
It’s a wonderful talk. Everyone should watch it and encourage their non sceptic friends and family to take a look. It’s an hour long, so one to watch in chunks.
Everyone seems to have a short attention span these days but you can’t distill what he has to say into 140 words or a 30 second soundbite. And watching a whole hour allows you to really feel his sincerity and honesty.
He has the medical authority to challenge the lies.
Dr Merritt also gave a talk at this conference. Can anyone link to it? I am a fan of hers.
McCullough mentions (unimportant, really, in such a blistering talk), but – Eric Clapton is now a friend.
Van Tam has no clue what is happening.
He is bound to say that restrictions stopped flu last year.
This must be based on a claim though that flu is less infectious than Covid. It would be good to know how this has been deduced. It sounds like circular reasoning to me. “We had Covid last year but no flu, so flu must be less infectious because our restrictions stopped it.”
He clearly does not want to consider other hypotheses such as the Wallis Hope-Simpson view that there is a dominant respiratory virus each year that somehow outcompetes all the others, which then effectively go away. Covid simply was the dominant one in 2020.
Such hypotheses (and others) are no less evidenced by “science” than the conjecture that flows from his lips.
The 15-60k range also looks like the normal flu season we get every year. Just as with Covid, the flu takes away many frail, older people who are nearly at the end of life. The vaccines are not 100% effective either and in the past there was lots of medical debate as to whether they should even be recommended.
Ultimately, our so called leaders… Read more »
“Van Tam has no clue what is happening.” I tend to think he knows exactly what is happening – he is powerful and important, as are his mates, and they are all in on a scam that keeps on giving, and his political masters are pleased with him for the same reasons, and he is up to his neck in it.
This lot are spinning the narrative to fit the agenda. The vaccines have destroyed immune systems. They know many will die this winter, but better to put the deaths down to flu than have the new ‘vaccines’ look ineffective.
Bingo. Certainly what it looks like…..
‘Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer, said: “Not many people got flu last year because of COVID-19 restrictions, so there isn’t as much natural immunity in our communities as usual.’
Absolutely incredible – you would think that a so-called ‘expert’ who had been backing the governments decision to lock us all up last year and impose restrictions would have fathomed this out before deciding to go along with government policies that would impact natural immunity – many other experts outside of government were predicting this very thing all along but were ignored in favour of listening to government wonks who have been getting it catastrophically wrong since day one – even your average reader with a modicum of intelligence on forums such as this were expressing concerns about covid restrictions and lockdowns impacting immune systems months ago but they were labelled ‘conspiracy theorists’.
There has got to be some kind of retribution over this debacle that could have been avoided if the government had listened to those outside the Westminster bubble.
Nuremburg 2.0 trials would be most welcome at this point.
“Absolutely incredible – you would think that a so-called ‘expert’ who had been backing the governments decision to lock us all up last year and impose restrictions would have fathomed this out before deciding to go along with government policies that would impact natural immunity”
What makes you think he hasn’t fathomed it out? What makes you think he cares one way or the other?
When I read articles like this showing the data it shows, I feel like I am in the middle ages hearing “doctors” discuss the most effective blood letting techniques to heal their patients.
Miasma projections.
Spanish Minister for Health forced to admit in court by doctors and lawyers that they have no isolates of SARS COV 2 and therefore COVID19 is a FRAUD.
JUSTICE IS COMING TO CORRUPT HEALTHCARE WORKERS & POLITICIANS !
https://www.bitchute.com/video/FQV8IhMKZtAd/
Officials fear that this winter could see up to 60,000 flu deaths – the worst figure in Britain since the 1968 Hong Kong Flu pandemic – without strong uptake of vaccines.
Uh yeah, sure. Ok.
Vaccines won’t make much difference. We know the flu vaccine isn’t particularly effective, especially in elderly people, because their immune systems don’t respond particularly energetically to the vaccine and therefore don’t create much immunity to the actual virus.
It’s all just more programming of the population to become used to getting vaccines for absolutely everything. If public health really was the objective, they’d be focusing on diet, exercise and vitamin and mineral supplements. But they don’t give a toss about public health. They give a toss about money and control.
Exactly Arthur, well said. Maybe I’m too far down the rabbit hole but I think the population is being primed for vaccines with Covid as the trojan horse. They openly state it in this video for heaven’s sake:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/explosive-video-emerges-fauci-hhs-officials-plotting-new-avian-flu-virus-enforce-universal-flu-vaccination-video/
Just today there was an article how some “African doctors” have developed the first-in-the-world malaria vaccine “after 50 years of research”. It also contained passages how “the vaccine does not really work, so all other malaria counter-measures are still required”. But still a “great success”.
I recall a study concerning flu vaccines that while they reduce the incidence of the particular variants somewhat, there is no evidence for reduction of the rate of respiratory infections overall. So basically, choose your vaccine, then get sick from something else.
European countries with the highest Flu vax rates have the highest CFR re SARS.
Does the vax adversely affect the immune systems ability to otherwise deal with SARS – or does it keep them alive to make future low hanging fruit? Or both?
Maybe all the bloody money spent on covid etc. would have been better spent in actually researching how the immune system works.
But that would never do – some really ugly truths might come out. What’s the betting said research has been done – do you honestly think the bastards would reveal it?
Frank Macfarlane Burnet et al must be turning in their graves.
yes they’d get much better bang for your buck reversing involution of the thymus.
Interesting how Toby mentioned “next month” specifically….insider knowledge?
NHS has had 70 years and experience of previous flu pandemics, so they are well structured to cope. And if they can’t cope then we will all do our bit by banging pots and pans and painting Rainbows…..
Tossers.
oh. And what happened with flu season in the Southern Hemisphere this past winter ? That’s usually the guide as to what junk (50-60% proof) vaccine they stick in. No big flu problems down under ?
and surely the magic masks will save everyone, just like they did in Japan last time flu went rampant.
They said covid was much more dangerous than flu and flu deaths, even in a bad year, could never reach the levels of covid deaths. But now they are predicting 60,000 deaths this winter from flu!
Ha, ha, ha, ha! They’re so obsessed with ramping up the fear to get everyone flu-jabbed that they’ve forgotten their own lies. Oh my goodness, let’s just hope nobody notices, eh?
The sad thing is that most people won’t notice – there have been loads of examples of U-turns over the past 18 months, and only a minority even notice them, never mind point them out.
Guys ‘n Gels,
Me thinks some of you are overlooking a key sentence in the article which includes the dreaded ‘m’ word: ” . . .Officials highlighted modelling from the Academy of Medical Sciences, which suggests this winter the UK could see between 15,000 and 60,000 flu deaths. . .”
:-)))
Wait, modelling isn’t an accurate prediction of reality? What are you saying?!
Models work beautifully, especially when there is no data to check them and you are having a one-off situation that has never happened before. Under those circumstances if you are not satisfied with the model’s prediction, you can always pile up more models, call it ensemble modelling to sound more scientific.
Yet another unintended consequence of stupid lockdowns! We know they used flu in hospitals to get more false positives for the plandemic. Is Doris really going to force a lockdown this winter, with rising prices, potential blackouts, inflation, unemployment and still try an early election before everything goes to hell?
“There is also concern about the effectiveness of this year’s jabs, because the lack of flu last year made it harder for scientists to sample the virus and predict the dominant strains.”
So what, exactly, are they planning to jab into the unsuspecting/trusting this time.
Just as with the ‘thevaccine’ they are just shooting in the dark and hoping the virus is going to be prevented from causing disease by the anticipated stimulation of our immune systems from the gloop in the syringe.
Never had bad flu, never had a flu jab. Nearly did when there was a chance that the ‘flublok’ non-adjuvanted product was demonstrated to be both effective and much quicker to produce (meaning that there was less guesswork required to ensure the vaccines were relevant to circulating strains) but….. then the company with the patents was bought out by Sanofi and the flublok never saw the light of day.
Then when the outbreak wrought havoc in Northern Italy, and in the light of US Army research showing that the annual flu jabs make recipients more vulnerable to other viruses, it was revealed that the annual flu jab given to elderly Italians along the Po Valley was a… Read more »
The flu immunisation being given to children this year contains these strains (I imagine the jab for grown-ups will be the same):
What Fluenz Tetra contains
The active substances are:
Reassortant influenza virus* (live attenuated) of the following four strains**:
A/Victoria/2570/2019 (H1N1)pdm09 – like strain (A/Victoria/1/2020, MEDI 340505) 107.0±0.5 FFU***
A/Cambodia/e0826360/2020 (H3N2) – like strain (A/Tasmania/503/2020, MEDI 339018) 107.0±0.5 FFU***
B/Washington/02/2019 – like strain (B/Washington/02/2019, MEDI 323797) 107.0±0.5 FFU***
B/Phuket/3073/2013 – like strain (B/Phuket/3073/2013, MEDI 306444) 107.0±0.5 FFU***
https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/3296/pil
From https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1018779/Influenza_vaccination_information_document_for_healthcare_practitioners.pdf
“ The timing and magnitude of potential influenza and COVID-19 infection waves for winter 2021 to 2022 are currently unknown, but the JCVI interim advice stated that mathematical modelling indicates the 2021 to 2022 influenza season in the UK could be up to 50% larger than typically seen and it is also possible that the 2021 to 2022 influenza season will begin earlier than usual. “
So, they are just jabbing kids and wrinklies with ‘something we made earlier’ and crossing our fingers that it won’t make them more at risk of other infections.
Ah, where would we be without modelling. [hint, no mass deaths in care homes, no lockdowns, no mask mandates, no business bankruptcies]
?Is this the same quadrivalent vaccine that made the elderly Italians susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 I wonder.
lol @ “mathematical modelling”
Other people’s children.
My talisman for warding off all diseases has been wearing an onion around my neck. Not only have I not caught Covid, but I also haven’t had a heart attack, had cancer, a stroke or any other dibilitating condition. Shows you how powerful wearing an onion can be.
(I’ve also not been jabbed, positively gone out of my way to touch people, ignore masks, hand gunk and have tried to live as normally as a sane person can do in a world full of the insane).
This whole area is a dog’s dinner of speculation. The degree of absence of ‘flu recently beggars belief, and has been a confused picture because of mis-diagnosis stemming from the Covid rush.
Then we have the absurd actual and information distortions caused by the barmy NPI measures and collapse of client-focussed public health as the needs of Big Pharma and its political allies took over.
Bluntly – what data can we now trust? This is a further turn of the screw.
… and thinking further, this question of ‘trust’ is fundamental to the whole disaster.
Of course, ‘trust’ can tip over into naivety, but a certain core of expectation is essential to the healthy functioning of society.
This has been blown out of the water with its exploitation, inherent in the Covid narrative.
So we are truly screwed in terms of one of the fundamentals, both physiological and psychological, for a properly functioning society.
As always, demolition is easier than reconstruction.
Should there be particular concern about what’s in this year’s flu vaccination? I have read a couple of items raising this concern.
Or is it more likely that flu will be used as the excuse to mask vaccine initiated deaths?
Looks like they have rolled out cuddly teddy bear Van Tam (yek) to start the coercion in his own inimitable way.
Am expecting the messaging and fear mongering to ramp up from now on. Was asked at the chemist this week whether I had had ‘my’ flu jab.
Sensation: – Over 65,940,000 Alive this winter
I’m in a room on my own and I can’t see any of them this is nonsense!