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Information
Amber cold health alert issued for North East and West, and Yorkshire and the Humber. Yellow cold alert issued the rest of England.
The amber alert affects North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. The yellow alert affects the rest of England. Both alerts are in place from 12pm Mon 17 Nov until 8am Sat 22 Nov. Please see the Weather health alerts page.
Entry title:
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
Last updated on Friday, 21 November 2025 at 10:15am
Information
Positivity metrics have not been updated this week
Positivity metrics for England, by UKHSA Region and by age have not been updated this week. This is due to an upstream data processing issue. Metrics will be updated once the issue has been resolved.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the common viruses that cause coughs and colds in winter. RSV causes mild symptoms in most people, but can be serious for some infants, older adults and people with chronic medical conditions.
The testing data we have for RSV comes from a sentinel surveillance system (a data collection method used to monitor trends). This means there are limitations to these data. Find out more about data collection for RSV.
During the autumn and the winter we update RSV testing metrics every Thursday at 4pm.
Weekly RSV positivity of people receiving a PCR test in England
The percentage of people who had a PCR test and had at least one positive PCR test result for RSV in the same 7 days. Data is shown by specimen date (the date the sample was collected).
Weekly RSV positivity of people receiving a PCR test in England data for the percentage of people who had a PCR test and had at least one positive PCR test result for RSV in the same 7 days. Data is shown by specimen date (the date the sample was collected).
Hospital admissions rate (excluding Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and High Dependency Units (HDUs)) per 100,000 people by age - respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
Age breakdown of weekly rates per 100,000 people of patients admitted to hospital (excluding Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and High Dependency Units (HDUs)) with RSV.
Hospital admissions rate (excluding Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and High Dependency Units (HDUs)) per 100,000 people by age - respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) data for age breakdown of weekly rates per 100,000 people of patients admitted to hospital (excluding Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and High Dependency Units (HDUs)) with RSV.