About this release

Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to consider timely ways to provide the public with official statistics. Between 28 March and 3 October 2024, PHS has moved to dashboard only updates for respiratory infection and COVID-19 surveillance on a four weekly basis and are reducing the frequency of the accompanying narrative report to monthly. The next report will be on 18 April. This approach aligns to the pre-pandemic one for respiratory pathogens, which typically follow a seasonal pattern. PHS will continue to monitor COVID-19 and other respiratory infection levels and reinstate the weekly narrative report before September 2024 if necessary. 

Background

Tracking infectious respiratory diseases, including COVID-19 and influenza, is essential, especially in the winter when the disease burden can be highest. In Scotland, respiratory infection and associated morbidity are monitored using enhanced surveillance. This approach combines data from microbiological sampling and laboratory test results from community and hospital settings with data from syndromic surveillance of NHS 24 calls, primary care consultations for respiratory symptoms, hospital (including intensive care) admissions and other settings.

The intelligence generated from surveillance of laboratory, syndromic and community settings provide a comprehensive picture of current respiratory illness in Scotland. The data presented in this report provide a comprehensive and timely epidemiological picture that is essential for understanding transmission of infection and supporting patient care and NHS service planning and policy.

Seasonality patterns / seasonal variations

Respiratory illnesses are associated with seasonal increase in the autumn and winter. Seasonality patterns for both influenza viruses and non-influenza respiratory pathogens have been established through many years of surveillance data. Most influenza and non-influenza pathogens circulate in the autumn and winter in Scotland, although some are known to circulate in the spring and summer. Notably, COVID-19 transmission has been occurring in waves throughout the year as observed from surveillance data since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 18 April 2024. Unless conditions warrant, reporting will become monthly from this week (week 11) through to the start of the winter season (week 40). Selected weekly figures and data from this report are still available through week 20 via the COVID-19 & Respiratory Surveillance in Scotland interactive dashboard. Between weeks’ 20 and 40, reporting via the dashboard will also switch to monthly. Updates to both the report and the dashboard will resume on a weekly basis in week 40.

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:

Further data

  • The COVID-19 Vaccine Wastage datafile was updated on 14 September 2023 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

General enquiries

If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please email phs.flu@phs.scot.

Media enquiries

If you have a media enquiry relating to this publication, please contact the Communications and Engagement team.

Requesting other formats and reporting issues

If you require publications or documents in other formats, please email phs.otherformats@phs.scot.

To report any issues with a publication, please email phs.generalpublications@phs.scot.

Older versions of this publication

Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.

Last updated: 27 March 2024
Was this page helpful?