What will the upcoming flu season in Canada look like?

Last year's flu season in Canada saw extremely few cases, amid stringent public health restrictions across the country. But as fall approaches, experts say we could see another relatively mild flu season.

University of Toronto infectious disease expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CTVNews.ca he "wouldn't be surprised" if we saw more flu cases this year compared to last year, given the looser public health restrictions we have now, but he doesn't expect the number of cases to jump to pre-pandemic levels.

"I really think that it won't be a 'regular influenza' in terms of having the same volume of cases," Bogoch said over the phone on Monday, "But I'm completely prepared to be way off on this because it's always very challenging to predict influenza."

Dr. Greta Bauer, who is a professor at Western University's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, believes it's too early to tell how the flu season in Canada is going to shape up, but says that the flu season in the southern hemisphere can offer a few clues. The southern hemisphere experiences winter during our summer months, which means that flu season has already wrapped up in those parts of the world.

"In the southern hemisphere, they've already wrapped up their influenza season for the year. And it was a very, very mild influenza season, so that usually bodes very well for us when we're going into it knowing that there hasn't been a lot of influenza in circulation that year in South and Central America," said Bauer.