COVID, the flu and RSV. Navigating the holiday season amidst a wave of illnesses
Global News
Holiday joy means potentially spreading the cold, flu, and COVID-19. And health experts caution Canadians to stay vigilant amid the festivities.
As the holiday season gets underway, the joy of gatherings with family and friends intertwines with the challenges of cold and flu season and rising COVID-19 cases in some provinces, prompting warnings from health experts for Canadians to remain vigilant.
Across Canada, the percentage of weekly positive COVID-19 tests was 18.2 per cent as of Dec. 12, with provinces like Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island seeing the highest spike in cases, according to the latest numbers from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
“As people are spending more time together indoors, there is an increase in the number of COVID cases that are occurring,” Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Disease Centre, told Global News. “In terms of the most severe parts of COVID, there are still three to four deaths per hour across the country from COVID, so it really hasn’t gone away.”
At a national level, the percentage of laboratory tests coming back positive for COVID-19 remains relatively high, PHAC said. But overall, most provinces and territories reported stable trends.
And it’s not just COVID-19 circulating. Other respiratory illnesses, like influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are making their rounds as well.
From Dec. 3 to Dec. 9, the weekly percentage of tests positive for influenza rose to 13.2 per cent, up from 9.9 per cent from the prior week, PHAC numbers show. Although influenza activity is increasing, PHAC said it is still within expected levels for this time of year.
Cases of RSV also continue to increase but are within expected levels for this time of year, with a total of 2,223 detections between Dec. 3 and Dec. 9, according to PHAC’s latest data.
“The flu kills people, COVID kills a lot of people. Both of these can make you very grievously ill, and RSV can make you grievously ill if you’re very young or very old,” warned Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor in the faculty of information at the University of Toronto.
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