Covid Admissions Rise While Autumn Jabs Lag for Over-75s

England’s weekly covid hospital rate rose to 2.46 per 100,000 in the week ending 11 October, up from 2.13, the UK Health Security Agency said. Flu admissions stayed flat at 1.88 per 100,000, inside the agency’s baseline band.

Emergency departments were already missing the four-hour standard in September, before that rise, and only 23.0% of people aged 75 and over had received an autumn 2026 covid dose by 11 October. The squeeze is the overlap of a small viral tick, a jammed front door, and a jab campaign that has not yet reached the patients who fill covid beds.

Covid Admissions Rose While Flu Stayed at Baseline

UKHSA’s weekly hospital admission rate for COVID-19 is still classed as low. Intensive-care admissions for covid held at 0.06 per 100,000. Flu’s hospital rate sat in the baseline impact range, below 2.15 per 100,000, and its intensive-care rate was 0.07.

Laboratory positivity barely moved. Flu was 6.0% on the Sunday of that week, against 6.2% a week earlier. Covid PCR positivity in hospital settings was 8.8%, against 9.0%. The count of covid cases found in hospital settings was 1,848, against 1,847. RSV was the virus that jumped, with laboratory positivity at 1.0% against 0.4% and a hospital rate of 0.23 per 100,000 against 0.13, still at baseline.

WEEK 41 HOSPITAL RATES IN ENGLAND

Flu hospital figures for the new season come from a pilot of 29 NHS trusts, so they are not a full England census. Covid admissions are a mandatory return from 94 trusts. Rhinovirus, the common-cold virus, still led the lab panel at 18.1% positivity, down a little from 19.5%.

What did rise above the seasonal band was influenza-like illness in emergency departments, which UKHSA said stayed above expected levels even though the attendance trend was stable. GP flu-like consultation rates rose to 6.3 per 100,000 from 5.6, still at baseline, and were highest in people aged 15 to 44.

September Already Looked Like Winter in A&E

The virus rates describe the week of 5 to 11 October. The last full month of A&E figures is September, and those numbers already read like a winter file. NHS England recorded 2,444,743 attendances that month, 5.8% higher than September 2025, while emergency admissions were almost unchanged at 536,158.

SEPTEMBER 2026 IN ENGLISH A&E

• Four-hour standard: 95% of patients should leave within four hours; none of 120 Type 1 trusts hit it.
• All-type performance: 74.4% of patients seen within four hours, against 75.0% in August and 75.1% in September 2025.
• Major departments: Type 1 performance was 60.6%.
• Trolley waits: 50,582 patients waited more than 12 hours after a decision to admit, 1,686 a day, 13.0% higher than a year earlier.

A further 129,199 waits after a decision to admit ran past four hours, about 4,307 a day. That is the queue ambulances join. NHS England’s August ambulance note, the last monthly pack with a published England average in the text, put the Category 2 mean at 28 minutes 52 seconds, against an 18-minute standard and a planning objective of 25 minutes by March 2027. Category 1, the life-threatening band, averaged 7 minutes 56 seconds, and the seven-minute mean has not been met since April 2021.

A 2.46 covid rate does not by itself create those waits. It arrives on a front door that was already missing its mark, which is how a modest respiratory rise turns into delayed care for strokes, heart attacks and everything else in the Category 2 stack.

How Many People Aged 75 Have Had the Autumn Covid Vaccine?

By the end of the week ending 11 October, 23.0% of people aged 75 and over living in England (1,369,892 of 5,960,304) had received an autumn 2026 covid dose since 1 October. Among people under 75 with a weakened immune system, coverage was 9.9% (150,573 of 1,521,753). Those groups, plus older-adult care-home residents, are the people ministers agreed to offer a free dose this autumn after Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advice, limited to adults aged 75 years and over, care-home residents, and immunosuppressed people from 6 months of age.

Eleven days is early in a campaign, not a final tally. The gap still matters because covid hospital rates are already highest in the same age band the offer is built around. UKHSA said last autumn’s programme was 47% effective against the outcomes it measured for three months after vaccination, and NHS figures cited by the agency put covid admissions at around 16,000 between October 2025 and January 2026.

WHO CAN GET A FREE JAB THIS AUTUMN

• Covid dose: 75 and over, older-adult care-home residents, and people aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed, from 1 October.
• Flu, first wave: Pregnant women and eligible children from 1 September.
• Flu, second wave: 65 and over, 18 to 64 in clinical risk groups, long-stay care-home residents and eligible carers from 1 October.
• RSV: Offered year-round to eligible older adults and during pregnancy, separate from the autumn covid booking window.

Flu coverage for people aged 65 and over was pulled from the week 42 report because some pharmacy data was missing, so UKHSA would not print a figure that could mislead. Pregnant women, a group eligible since 1 September, stood at 19.3%. NHS England said on 15 October that more than 7 million flu vaccinations had been given across England this autumn, and eligible adults can book a free NHS flu vaccine through the app, online, a GP practice or a pharmacy.

UKHSA’s own weekly thread led on stable flu positivity, with covid’s mixed picture further down, which made the one hospital rate that actually rose easier to miss.

🆕📊 The latest #UKHSAVirusWatch shows that flu and COVID-19 positivity remain at similar levels compared to last week.
🟢 Flu positivity from lab surveillance remained stable at 6.0%, compared with 6.2% in the previous week pic.twitter.com/E9vmj9VWVJ

— UK Health Security Agency (@UKHSA) October 15, 2026

Hospital Rates Climb Fastest After Age 85

Covid’s hospital rate in people aged 85 and over was 26.69 per 100,000, up from 24.20. That is more than ten times the all-age figure. Positivity in that age group was 13.5%. The West Midlands had the highest regional covid admission rate, at 3.55 per 100,000. Flu also landed hardest at 85 and over, at 9.43 per 100,000, from 252 new flu admissions in the reporting trusts, most of them influenza A with the subtype still unknown.

RSV’s climb is a child story so far. In under-5s the sentinel hospital rate rose to 3.62 per 100,000 from 2.29. In adults aged 75 and over it was 0.00 in the same sentinel set. Emergency-department attendances for bronchiolitis stayed below seasonal expectations.

Dr Alex Allen, a consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, said covid activity had increased but remained low, and that circulating strains including those known as XFG were closely related to viruses seen for more than a year.

If you are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine it is because you are at greater risk of severe illness and being hospitalised. Don’t risk it, get the vaccine and give yourself the best protection.

Dr Alex Allen, Consultant Epidemiologist, UK Health Security Agency

Intensive care has not moved with the ward rate. Covid ICU or high-dependency admissions stayed at 0.06 per 100,000. Flu ICU admissions were 27 in the week, 0.07 per 100,000. The pressure showing up in A&E is volume at the front door, not a jump in critical-care occupancy.

Flu Is Higher Than the Last Four Septembers

On 8 October UKHSA said flu activity through September, while still low, was higher than in the same stretch of the previous four winter seasons, with trends rising since August and possible signs of an early flu season. Week 40 hospitalisations were 1.97 per 100,000, before the 1.88 reading a week later. Young adults drove the early increase. Influenza A positivity in 18- to 24-year-olds was 16.6% in week 41, down from 26.3%, still far above the all-age 5.4% for flu A.

That pattern puts flu in the age groups that mix at work and campus, then in the households that include the 85-year-olds now occupying covid beds. It is also the shape of 2022 to 2023, when flu hospitalisations in England moved above baseline from week 43 and peaked in week 51. This season is only at week 41, and the hospital rate is still baseline, so that comparison is a warning, not a forecast of the same peak.

Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, tied the early signal to the booking window that had just opened for older adults.

Flu levels are increasing with the possibility of an early flu season so now is the time for those eligible to get vaccinated. The vaccine contains components to help protect against all three types of flu virus.

Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, Consultant Epidemiologist, UK Health Security Agency

A World Health Organization note flagged a drifted A(H1N1) virus at low levels in Europe and recently in the UK. UKHSA said it was too early to know whether that virus would spread widely or how well this year’s jab would cover it, and that subtyping so far showed an even mix of H3N2 and H1N1 in England. Last winter a drifted H3N2 strain still left the vaccine able to cut severe disease, the agency said.

Last Winter the Flu Programme Prevented About 100,000 Admissions

THE AUTUMN 2026 DATES THAT MATTER

1. 1 September 2026: Flu jabs open for pregnant women and eligible children.
2. 1 October 2026: Flu opens for people aged 65 and over; covid autumn doses open for people aged 75 and over and other eligible groups.
3. 8 October 2026: UKHSA warns that September flu ran higher than the past four years.
4. 11 October 2026: Week 41 ends; covid hospital rate 2.46, flu 1.88, 75+ covid coverage 23.0%.
5. 15 October 2026: Week 42 surveillance report published; NHS says more than 7 million flu doses have been given.

UKHSA modelling for last winter found the flu vaccination programme in England prevented around 100,000 hospital admissions and 7,000 deaths, even with a drifted virus and an earlier start. That is the scale a slow October can still change, because a jab taken in the next fortnight is the one that sits in the same body as a December wave.

The week’s own figures do not show a winter peak. They show covid ticking up in the oldest patients, flu holding at baseline after an early September, RSV moving in young children, and A&E already missing the four-hour mark. The next useful number is not another tenth of a point on the all-age rate. It is how fast those 5.96 million people aged 75 and over get the dose they have been offered.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on UK Health Security Agency surveillance and NHS England performance figures, and it is for information only. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a recommendation about whether any person should have a flu, covid or RSV vaccine. Readers who are unsure about eligibility, timing after a previous dose, or symptoms should speak to a GP, pharmacist or other qualified clinician before making a decision. Rates, coverage percentages and waiting-time figures are those published in the sources dated 8 to 15 October 2026 and will change as later weekly reports appear.