{"id":956924,"date":"2026-11-03T16:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T16:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956924\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T16:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T16:02:13","slug":"ontario-flu-season-how-good-is-the-current-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956924\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario flu season: how good is the current shot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ontario\u2019s flu season started earlier this year and cases appear to be gradually rising on a week-by-week basis. But, data also shows this year\u2019s vaccine is working well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to Public Health Ontario, there were 360 positive cases of influenza (all types) reported across the province between Oct. 18 and Oct. 24. A week earlier, there were 305 cases and a week before that, 225.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cp24.com\/news\/canada\/2026\/10\/10\/flu-season-is-starting-early-heres-what-canadians-need-to-know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cp24.com\/news\/canada\/2026\/10\/10\/flu-season-is-starting-early-heres-what-canadians-need-to-know\/\">even though Ontario\u2019s flu season kicked off in early September<\/a>, the efficacy of the currently available flu shot seems strong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch pointed to <a href=\"https:\/\/health-infobase.canada.ca\/respiratory-virus-surveillance\/influenza.html?wbdisable=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/health-infobase.canada.ca\/respiratory-virus-surveillance\/influenza.html?wbdisable=true\">the National Microbiology Lab of Canada tests for circulating influenza strains<\/a>, which determines how good the match is for this year\u2019s flu shot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe early data, where they tested 116 samples, demonstrated that the current flu vaccine or the flu vaccine that\u2019s being rolled out this year is a pretty good match, like a really good match for the circulating flu. So, great news,\u201d he said in an interview with CTV News Toronto on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The province began rolling out free flu shots for some groups <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/article\/ontario-launches-flu-and-covid-19-immunizations-next-week-heres-when-you-can-get-your-shot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/article\/ontario-launches-flu-and-covid-19-immunizations-next-week-heres-when-you-can-get-your-shot\/\">in late September,<\/a> and opened up availability Ontario-wide on Oct. 26.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In a news release published Tuesday, Toronto Public Health encouraged residents to get both their flu and COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cFree flu and COVID-19 vaccines are available for everyone aged six months and older through participating pharmacies and health-care providers across Toronto. TPH is also holding a vaccination clinic for everyone aged six months and older on Thursday, Nov. 5, at North York Civic Centre, where residents can receive flu, COVID-19 and RSV vaccines,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Bogoch added that currently-available COVID-19 vaccines also appear to be working well to combat the spread of the disease. In Ontario, there were 258 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 week ending Oct. 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario\u2019s flu season started earlier this year and cases appear to be gradually rising on a week-by-week basis.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[712,49,48,84],"class_list":["post-956924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956924","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=956924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}