Viral respiratory diseases (including influenza and COVID-19) in Scotland surveillance report

About this release

Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to consider timely ways to provide the public with official statistics. Between April and October 2025, Public Health Scotland (PHS) will update the narrative report once a month. The narrative report will be produced on 15 May 2025, 12 June 2025, 10 July 2025, 7 August 2025, 4 September 2025 and 2 October 2025. Full weekly narrative reporting will return on 9 October 2025. This approach aligns to the pre-pandemic one for respiratory pathogens, which typically follow a seasonal pattern. However, the interactive dashboard updates will remain a weekly publication. PHS will continue to monitor COVID-19 and other respiratory infection levels and reinstate the weekly narrative report before October 2025 if necessary.

Main points

Overall assessment 12 May 2025 to 8 June 2025 (ISO week 20 to week 23):

• Syndromic indicators for respiratory infections in the community and in GP practices are all at baseline.
• COVID-19, Influenza and RSV - There is some evidence of increases in COVID-19 measures, with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases increasing from 141 to 180 and test positivity through CARI surveillance increasing from 4.0% to 6.3% over the period. However, these increases remain modest in relation to historic levels. Globally, new COVID-19 lineage NB.1.8.1 has been designated as a variant under monitoring although numbers remain low in Scotland. Hospital admissions due to COVID-19 have also continued to increase slightly from 41 in week 20 to 54 in week 23 (a 31% increase). Overall influenza and RSV signals remain low across all surveillance systems, with influenza B test positivity decreasing from 4.2% to 0.7% through CARI surveillance. The highest proportion of total hospital admissions due to COVID-19, influenza and RSV were accounted for by COVID-19.
• Other pathogens HMPV and parainfluenza - have been circulating above baseline over the last month in laboratory surveillance. However, HMPV has shown a statistically significant decrease (from 10.9% test positivity to 6.9%) through CARI surveillance. Parainfluenza test positivity increased in CARI from 6.9% to 13.3% and, in laboratory surveillance, cases increased from 0.7 to 1.0 per 100,000 of the population.
• All-cause excess mortality for week 20 (the latest week not impacted by reporting delays) remained at baseline overall and across age groups.
• Vaccine uptake for the spring 2025 COVID-19 vaccination programme was 80.8% for older care home residents, 61.3% among adults aged 75 years and older, and 35.1% in individuals with a weakened immune system.

Further information

The next update of the interactive dashboard will be 19 June 2025.

The next narrative report will be published on 10 July 2025.

Find out more

Previous Publications

Versions of the Weekly national respiratory report publication released before 30 November 2022 may be found on the Public Health Scotland website.

Versions of the COVID-19 weekly statistical report publication released before 30 November 2022 may be found on the Public Health Scotland website.

Open data

Open data from this publication is available from the following weblinks:

• Viral respiratory diseases Open Data platform
• Flu and COVID vaccination uptake Open Data platform

Further data

• The COVID-19 Vaccine Wastage datafile was updated on 18 April 2024 to include the most recent information.
• The COVID-19 in Adult Care Homes in Scotland datafile was updated on 27 July 2023 to include more recent information.
• 28 September 2022 COVID-19 statistical report publication contains information on COVID-19 infection and vaccination in pregnancy in Scotland.
• 2 March 2022 COVID-19 statistical report publication contains information on Highest Risk (shielding patients list)
• 7 November 2023 Community Acute Respiratory Infection (CARI) surveillance in primary care contains information on flu Vaccine effectiveness in community settings.
• 25 May 2023 Interim 2022/23 influenza vaccine effectiveness: six European studies, October 2022 to January 2023, contains information on flu Vaccine effectiveness in hospital settings.
• 13 January 2024 Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programs in the WHO European Region, December 2020 to March 2023, contains information on lives saved due to COVID-19 vaccination