political debate. bret: right, speaking of which the flu vaccine. a lot of the people didn t take the flu vaccine in the past. flu season is coming up. flu cases, historically low. in part the cdc says because of the mitigation efforts and masks and washing hands. but that is a potentially a big deal, right? look, if we see declining levels of uptick of the flu vaccine, that s going to be detrimental. we don t know how bad of a flu season we are in for right now. there is some indication there could be another mild flu season. it s very important for people to go out and get the flu vaccine we didn t put any flu immunity in the population last year. a so if we do end up having a brad flu season this year you will have a lot of people who didn t get immunity last year who are going to be especially vulnerable to the virus this year. the vaccine becomes even more important now that we didn t have a bad glu flu season in the prior season. bret: all right. the book is uncontrolled s
the same way you would think about pfizer or moderna, which is we are going to need a booster at some point. that s just how vaccines work. even the single dose of j&j works very well against severe disease. but that second dose of j&j provides a little extra boost or added protection, which becomes even more important with these new varns you re seeing. about this time last year a lot of public health officials were talking about the potential for a twindemic. that didn t come to fruition. flu cases were dramatically low last season. is it more likely that could happen this year? let s be clear on why flu cases were so low last year.
winter, as the nhs faces potentially a triple whammy. an increase in the number of covid cases, a spike in flu cases in the backlog we have heard so much about. there was already evidence of that. look at scotland today, with the unite union saying that the army should be brought in to help a&e crews, such is the pressure there. 0fficials brought in to help a&e crews, such is the pressure there. officials in england are looking at contingency plans if there is a spike here, and there is a fear around hospital struggling. for instance, facemasks being used again, people working from home if possible, if necessary. the prime minister there will say that some of the emergency powers that some of the emergency powers that the government took hold of in england, for instance insisting that schools should close, they will be revoked. separately, the committee that looks at vaccinations expected on monday to decide or set out its advice on who should be eligible for advice on who should be el
this year? yes. it has experts incredibly concerned, hallie, not only are we worried about the flu but there s been a significant spike in multiple other respiratory viruses in particular rsv, which is impact kids adversely. yes, we saw a significant probably one of the lowest number of flu cases since we started tallying influenza in this country last year because all the covid-19 mitigation strategies, masking, hand washing, social distancing helped and also we weren t traveling, kids were home schooling and now everything is opening up and we re kind of just sitting almost like sitting ducks in a sense, because even with adults who get the flu, there is some leftover carryover immunity from one season to the next. so there s not a lot of immunity amongst adults or kids actually from last year heading into this flu season, which is why it s even more imperative to get more than 50% of the adult population vaccinated against flu, 50%
seqirus supplies vaccines to gps and pharmacies. it s warned that road freight challenges have disrupted their work. there simply aren t enough lorry drivers to distribute the vaccine. the concern is that any delay in delivering the flu jab could have a knock on effect on the wider nhs. with increased pressure on hospitals, during a winter when medics already know they will have to deal with both flu and covid. more flu cases, potentially caused by a delay in vaccines, plus high levels of covid in the community, plus the nhs trying to deal with other issues really is a bit of a perfect storm. i think there s a high level of anxiety amongst my clinical colleagues who are really, really tired and going into another difficult winter. surgeries are already limiting blood tests due to a chronic shortage of test tubes. doctors leaders are critical of the government s handling of the disruption. we re hearing nothing from the politicians i and the bma is calling for the government toi