Flu shots way up, still no official cases

Alberta has now provided influenza vaccine shots to more than 1.5 million Albertans, which is about 200,000 more than last year at this time.

According to the latest influenza report from Alberta Health Services, dated Thursday, a total of 1,514,141 doses have been administered across the province. Of those, 95,033 were in the South zone, which is similar to January 2020.

Alberta continues to have no cases of influenza.

A recent Health Canada report called FluWatch noted that there had been 55 confirmed cases of flu in other parts of the country.

Most are classified as influenza A “unsubtyped” while there are also cases of influenza A (H3N2) influenza A (H1N1) and influenza B.

Last year at this stage in the flu season Alberta had already identified more than 3,000 cases of influenza A and B and a total of 461 people had been hospitalized with influenza since the beginning of the season.

Alberta does not reveal the number of influenza lab testing being done but the recent FluWatch report indicates that there have been “elevated levels of testing” across the country. An average of 12,301 each week are being done according to laboratories that are reporting to FluWatch.

In Canada the influenza season usually starts in mid November. Some years it has been as early as mid-October and as late as early January. So far the number of cases is too low to declare that an influenza season has actually even started in Canada, according to FluWatch.

A spokesperson for Alberta Health has previously stated that the health measures and restrictions for COVID have resulted in the lack of influenza that we are currently experiencing.