Seasonal Flu Epidemics: Why Do They Happen and Could this One Turn Into a Killer ?
The UK's 2025-26 influenza epidemic is now well underway and is taxing the NHS to its limits, as predicted. One additional ‘wild-card’ for this year comes courtesy of the junior doctors (or ‘Residents’ as they now like to call themselves), who decided to strike for yet more pay over what will probably be one of the busiest periods in the run-up to Christmas, and have just voted for an extension to their strike mandate till July 2026. A bold move by the membership who voted for it, you might say, but not one which will earn them many ‘brownie points’ with the rest of us, or with the government. Perhaps more seriously for them, there is strong possibility that they, and they alone, will be blamed for any excess deaths that result of the previous, and any future, strikes. Whether a particularly ‘gung ho’ BMA leadership will be able, or even prepared , to defend them from the consequences of their actions is another matter…. Adverse circumstances aside, this would be a good tim...