Fact check: The British government is not combining data on COVID-19 and the flu; it is publishing the separate data together in one report
A screenshot of an official coronavirus report has been used to wrongly suggest that data on COVID-19 and influenza are now being combined in England.
The photo, uploaded to numerous accounts in mid-October, is seen in these posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here), and has been taken from a weekly COVID-19 surveillance report published on the Public Health England (PHE) website on Oct. 2 (here).
In this particular report, one line reads: “This will be the last COVID-19 surveillance report, as of 8 October 2020, the information in this report will be published in a combined Weekly flu and COVID-19 Surveillance Report on GOV.UK.”
This line has since been used to illustrate the Facebook users’ claims that PHE has decided to combine COVID-19 and influenza figures, with one person specifically asserting – falsely – that this would “create one statistic”.
Another said: “What do
