James Hay has explained who is most at risk, where the virus is spreading and the one way you can cut your risk of falling seriously ill
Neil Shaw Network Content Editor
08:59, 13 Dec 2025Updated 09:08, 13 Dec 2025
Children are on the frontline of this year’s flu outbreak
An expert has explained why so many children are falling ill with the superflu that is hospitalising thousands of people in the UK. James Hay at the University of Oxford has laid out exactly how dangerous, and unusual, this year’s outbreak really is – and what steps everyone needs to take.
Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS national medical director, said the ‘unprecedented wave of super flu is leaving the NHS facing a worst-case scenario’, but Hay, Research Fellow in Infectious Diseases Modelling, says both the spread of the virus and the severity of illness ‘remain within what experts consider normal for a flu season’.
He said the subtype of flu that is dominant this year, influenza A/H3N2, has been around since 1968 and we see “super flu” every few years. He told The Conversation : “The situation is comparable to previous years after taking the early season start into account, as a recent analysis my colleagues and I conducted shows.”
Hay said the flu season in England started earlier than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and b ased on the data for England from the UK Health Security Agency, the north and the Midlands are possibly experiencing higher flu rates – but not significantly so.
He said: “Children and teens are more likely to get infected due to their high contact rates in schools, where a lot of spread happens, and also because their immune systems are less experienced at dealing with flu viruses.
“Adults are less likely to become infected overall, as they typically have lower contact rates and their immune systems have more experience with influenza. However, people over 64 are more likely to have existing health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe illness if they do become infected, and their immune systems have started to weaken in a process called immunosenescence.
“Babies are also at greater risk of severe illness as their immune systems are still undeveloped. People of a similar age tend to have been infected with similar flu viruses, which might explain why certain age groups are more affected by flu than others in some seasons. It might be that the virus this year happens to have found an immunity gap in children that isn’t present in other age groups.”
Hay said the latest data shows that the flu vaccine reduces the risk of being hospitalised with flu by about 30 to 40% in older people and ‘ vaccination is still the best thing you can do to protect yourself and help reduce the burden on the NHS’.
He said c hildren are around 70 to 75% less likely to attend or be admitted to hospital with flu if vaccinated, adding: “Children are offered a nasal spray, whereas adults are given an injection. Studies have shown that the nasal spray vaccine works better in children and less well in adults, which is why the recommendations are different.”
If you think you have the virus, Hay said: “Stay home if you are sick, rest, and take sensible precautions to avoid spreading the virus to others. Getting influenza is very unpleasant, but everyone will get it roughly once every five years. In the vast majority of cases, people get better on their own. But you should still follow the NHS guidelines regarding seeking treatment.”
And he said you should still get the vaccine: “It’s not too late, and the sooner the better! Even after the epidemic has peaked, it will take a few months before cases reach low levels again. There is still a risk of infection in that time, so any extra protection from the vaccine is still helpful.”
