Hello, it's that time of the year where everyone says,
oh, everyone's coughing and spluttering and off sick from work.
There's a lot of it going about.
Normally I'm quite skeptical because that's anecdotes rather than data,
but today NHS England said we are facing an unprecedented situation with flu.
We will dig into the details about what makes it so unprecedented on this episode of Newscast.
Take me down to Downey Street.
Let's go have a tour.
Blimey.
Hello,
it's Adam in the newscast studio and health bosses in England are warning of the worst case scenario for this time of year for flu and the NHS,
at least in England.
They're quoting figures for the number of patients in hospital with flu in England each day last week,
which was 2,660.
That is up 55% on the week before and is the highest it's ever been for this time of year.
And the reason they're saying this is unprecedented and the worst case scenario is
because it's a combination of things like this slightly different strain of flu that is circulating when this is happening versus when most people have managed to get their flu jab and then you throw into that the impending strike by resident doctors formerly known as junior doctors which is due to take place next week.
So there is lots of data to dive into and lots of things to look at.
And the people who are going to help us do that are the BBC's health editor Hugh Pym,
who's here in the studio.