Flu ‘could lead to more fatalities than Covid’ says Professor Hunter

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Professor Paul Hunter has warned that influenza this year could “lead to more fatalities than Covid”, saying that he is very “worried”. Influenza infections declined dramatically in 2020 due to Covid restrictions, but experts are warning of the potentially devastating combination of COVID-19 and the flu as restrictions have eased. Speaking on BBC Newsnight, Prof Hunter said: “Well yes, I mean it is, as you said, it’s actually quite complicated.

“What’s going on at the moment is very difficult to predict even more than a couple of weeks in advance.

“And probably also the threats from other infections like influenza that could well be coming back this year.

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Prof Hunter said: “At the moment I’m actually more worried about influenza because certainly we didn’t see any influenza for about 18 months and if it comes back, the evidence is the longer you wait between cases of infective influenza, perhaps the worst the illness. 

“So it may well be the case that we are just a particularly severe influenza pandemic, or epidemic.

“And that could in fact, actually lead to more fatalities than we’re seeing with COVID.”

He went on: “Who are the people, demographically now dying with Covid.

“I think the main factor is age 60% of deaths are in people over 70.

“Ninety percent of deaths about or in people over 50.

He continued: “And once we’ve gone through that whole range of other factors including ethnicity, people who have Black and Asian origin, they were more likely to die last year. 

“People who are obese people are suffering other underlying conditions.

New coronavirus cases have surged to almost 50,000 a day in the UK following children’s return to school.

Infection numbers in Britain are currently much higher than in other western European nations and have leaped more than 60 percent in the last month.

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