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 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 9 June 2025 to 6 July 2025 (ISO week 24 to week 27):

• Syndromic indicators for respiratory infections in the community and in GP practices remain at baseline in weeks 24-27.
• COVID-19, influenza and RSV: Due to data processing issues between ECOSS and CDW, there is only complete COVID-19 laboratory data to end of Week 26. Laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases show a decreasing trend in the 3 full week period from 261 to 231, and the early indication is that this continues through week 27. In CARI, although there was a statistically significant increase in overall test positivity between the previous 4-week reporting period (6.5%) and the current 4-week reporting period (10.0%), week 27 saw a decrease in test positivity to 7.1% from 12.4% in week 26. COVID-19 lineage NB.1.8.1 has increased as a proportion of all variants from 22% to 39% by end of week 24 (due to sequencing turnaround times), although WHO have assessed the public health risk of this variant as low. Hospital admissions due to COVID-19 have remained relatively stable (98 in week 24 to 112 in week 26). Overall influenza and RSV signals remain low across all surveillance systems, with influenza B test positivity decreasing to 0% through CARI surveillance.
• Other pathogens: Other respiratory pathogens continue to fluctuate between baseline and low levels in laboratory surveillance over the last month. HMPV continues to decrease (from 6.7% test positivity to 3.7%) through CARI surveillance while parainfluenza test positivity remains stable.
• All-cause excess mortality for week 24 (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 68.2% among adults aged 75 years and older, 79.5% for older care home residents, and 42.0% in individuals with a weakened immune system.

Further information

The next update of the interactive dashboard will be 17 July 2025.

The next narrative report will be published on 7 August 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