{"id":307919,"date":"2025-11-26T10:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307919\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T10:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:35:13","slug":"calgary-is-one-of-the-countrys-hot-spots-for-influenza-health-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307919\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary is one of the country\u2019s hot spots for influenza: Health Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calgary and the surrounding area has become one of the hot spots for the flu in Canada, according to the latest Canadian respiratory virus surveillance report, published by Health Canada.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Calgary joins B.C.\u2019s Lower Mainland, B.C. north coast, southern Ontario, northern Quebec, the Gaspe Peninsula and northern New Brunswick as the areas of the country where Health Canada is reporting localized influenza<\/a> outbreaks.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAccording to the latest Canadian respiratory virus surveillance report, Calgary has become one of the hot spots for flu outbreaks in Canada.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: Health Canada\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Mathieu Giroux, pharmacist at Calgary\u2019s Cambrian Pharmacy in Northmount Village, told Global News the increase in the number of people getting the flu has also led to a recent jump in the number of people booking a flu shot.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing vaccines since mid-October and we\u2019re going on week six or seven and it\u2019s still pretty much fully booked every day. So there\u2019s a lot of demand,\u201d said Giroux.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t5:49
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat you need to know this flu season\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Despite the recent demand, there has been a big drop in the number of people getting vaccinated this year.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tGet weekly health news<\/p>\n

Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.<\/p>\n

So far only about 712,000 have rolled up their sleeve, compared to over a million last year and over 1.6 million that got the shot five years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get the flu shot every year,\u201d said Calgarian Carolyn Levitz. \u201cSince I started getting it about five years ago I just never get sick. I find it\u2019s really, really effective.<\/p>\n

Others seem less convinced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids go to daycare and stuff and as long as you eat healthy and everything should be good,\u201d said Cal Aube.<\/p>\n

According to the government of Alberta\u2019s respiratory virus dashboard, there have been 251 hospitalized with the flu virus in Alberta so far this year<\/a>, with 17 of them in intensive care and six deaths.<\/p>\n

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By comparison, there have been almost twice that number of Albertans hospitalized with COVID and 49 deaths.<\/p>\n

While H1N1 was predicted to be the dominant strain of the flu this winter by makers of the flu vaccine, the H3N2 strain has become much more common in recent weeks<\/a>, meaning the vaccine may not be as effective as originally hoped.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAccording to the government of Alberta\u2019s respiratory virus dashboard, H3N2 has now become the dominant flu strain in most laboratory-confirmed cases in the province.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: Government of Alberta\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cFlu vaccines are always a prediction, a calculation based on the southern hemisphere,\u201d said Giroux.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat being said, there\u2019s always cross-reaction between those strains \u2014 you still get some immunity out of them because you don\u2019t have a perfect fit for your antibodies, but immunity is much more complex than that so there\u2019s layers of immunity so you still get like some coverage,\u201d said Giroux.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal for any vaccine like COVID or flu is always to keep you out of the hospital \u2014 so you still get really good protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Judging by the trend over the past few years, Giroux predicts the flu outbreak is just \u201cramping up\u201d and he expects it to hit its peak in late December or early January.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAsk the Expert: Protecting yourself and your family against the flu\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calgary and the surrounding area has become one of the hot spots for the flu in Canada, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,50363,64228,64229,84,60479],"class_list":["post-307919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-flu","tag-h1n1","tag-h3n2","tag-health","tag-influenza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}