For the 2019-2020 flu season, only young children, the elderly, and other special groups were vaccinated against flu under the NHS. In other countries, people were vaccinated universally (all age groups.) The decision to only vaccinate certain groups in the UK made sense for the 2019-2020 flu season, as there was adequate capacity in the ICUs and enough ventilators to support all severe influenza cases.



However, our ICUs are currently full with COVID-19 patients. We are at capacity now; hopefully we won't exceed it. But it would be wise to start planning for the winter, where we may see a confluence of both COVID-19 and flu patients, who will be competing for the same resources.



Covering universal flu vaccination under the NHS will reduce the number of flu cases, freeing up beds for COVID-19 patients, for whom there is no vaccination currently available.



In order to do this, we will need to purchase more flu vaccinations ahead of time, so a greater number of vaccines will be produced, and we need to do this NOW.

If we wait until the fall or winter to change this policy, we will run out of flu vaccines, and it will be too late.

(Photo Credit: Fars News Agency, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License)