Flu is serious

Your front page article ( 28 August) on the drop in flu vaccine uptake last winter i s alarming. I rang my GP recently to arrange vaccination but was told I would have to wait until October.

Your article itself refers to “seasonal” ( winter) flu, yet Office for National Statistics figures show that for each week between 19 June and 31 July 2020 almost 1,000 people in the UK died of flu with pneumonia, five times the figures of those who died from Covid- 19 during the same period, and this is regarded as “normal” for the time of year.

Even if the great majority of these deaths were of those of extreme age and fragility, flu and its complications are an all- year killer, averaging around 17,000 UK deaths a year since 2010.

The government has doubled the number of people eligible for the flu jab; now the public’s complacency must be overcome with a similar impetus to that focused on coronavirus.

JAMES ALLAN Blackfriars Street, Edinburgh