Public health numbers are confirming something many people are all too aware of – we are in the midst of a busy flu season.
Public health numbers are confirming something many people are all too aware of — Ottawa is in the midst of a busy flu season that is making more people sick than a year ago and is expected to get worse.
Over the week ending Feb. 8, more than a quarter of people tested for influenza in Ottawa were positive — a high rate that is increasing, according to Ottawa Public Health. Influenza testing is largely done in health institutions, including long-term care homes and hospitals, and predominately for those who are at the highest risk, particularly people over the age of 65.
In Ottawa during that period, 47 people were admitted to hospital with influenza, levels which are high and increasing. There have also been 11 new and 24 ongoing influenza outbreaks at long-term care homes, hospitals, retirement homes and elsewhere, according to the most recent numbers.
Dr. Trevor Arnason, interim medical officer of health with Ottawa Public Health, said that Ottawa is in the middle of a very busy flu season.
More than 150,000 doses of flu vaccine have been administered across the city since last fall through pharmacies and community health care providers. Even with immunization, people can become infected with influenza, but it reduces the severity of illness by about half, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
While Ontario is seeing a busy flu season this year, some parts of the U.S. have been reporting the highest number of flu cases in the past 15 years. The severe flu season south of the border has overwhelmed some hospitals and led to 13,000 deaths in the U.S. so far this season.
According to Public Health Ontario, peak flu activity across the province is higher than last year, but hospitalization levels are about the same.
Evening Update
Across Canada, 76 people have died as a result of flu since last August.
Influenza and respiratory illness season has brought new concerns this year as avian influenza continues to spread and mutate throughout the U.S. and Canada. There have been recent poultry outbreaks and cases among wildlife reported in Ontario. A key concern is that if avian flu and human flu were to mix their genetic material it could allow avian influenza to spread to and among people. Ontario is among jurisdictions that have been sequencing influenza samples to screen for possible avian influenza.
So far, more than 100 specimens have been sequenced through Public Health Ontario with no cases of avian influenza identified. The risk to humans from avian influenza remains low, according to health officials, but pandemic experts across North America have been warning that the risk of a pandemic increases the more it spreads.
There have been no human cases of avian influenza in Ontario. In the past decade, there have been two in Canada, one imported and one acquired in British Columbia. The teenager in the British Columbia case became severely ill and was hospitalized on life support equipment for an extended period, but survived. The returning traveller who had avian influenza in 2014 died of the illness.
Influenza is not the only respiratory illness circulating.
In Ottawa, hospitalizations for RSV also continue to be high. COVID-19 levels are significantly lower than they were last fall, but it still causes outbreaks and hospitalizations. In the week ending Feb. 8, 24 Ottawa residents were hospitalized because of COVID-19 compared with 47 people who were hospitalized because of the flu.
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