National Flu And COVID-19 Surveillance Reports Published - 14 October 2021

The main points from this week’s national influenza and COVID-19 surveillance report are:

Surveillance indicators suggest that at a national level COVID-19 activity had increased in some instances in week 40 of 2021.

Case rates were highest in those aged 10 to 19, with a weekly rate of 1120.8 per 100,000 population.

The lowest case rates were in those aged 80 and above, with a weekly rate of 110.8 per 100,000 population.

Weekly case rates per 100,000 population were highest in the East Midlands at 488.7.

Case rates per 100,000 were lowest in London with a weekly rate of 214.2.

The number of acute respiratory infection incidents (suspected outbreaks) in England was 579 in week 40, compared to 543 in the previous week.


The hospital admission rate for week 40 was 6.03 per 100,000 population, in the previous week it was 5.74 per 100,000 population.

Hospital admission rates for COVID-19 were highest in the North East, with a rate of 9.98 per 100,000 population.

The highest hospital admission rates continue to be those aged 85 and above.

Dr William Welfare, Incident Director at the UK Health Security Agency, said:
"Case rates of COVID-19 remain high across the country and have been slowly rising.

"As winter approaches, help protect yourself against COVID-19 and flu by washing your hands regularly and wearing a mask in crowded places. When meeting people inside, open windows and doors to ventilate the room.

"If you are offered a vaccine for either COVID-19 or flu, please take it. If you have any COVID-19 symptoms, get a PCR test."