We aren’t quite out of the woods yet as far as the flu goes.
According Dr. Andrew Gray from Northern Health, while the worst may be over, the winter influenza season is not finished.
“The peak of influenza activity really happened around New Years but it certainly hasn’t gone away entirely,” said Gray.
For the trends of this virus, he said this year’s strain tends to impact young adults and children more than seniors as compared to other years and the vaccine is more effective than usual at an estimated 70% success rate.
Even if you haven’t had your flu shot yet, Gray said it’s still worth getting. While you may think you’ve had the virus already, you may not be immune to another, less severe wave they expect to rear its head.
“There’s typically two strains of influenza that circulate each year, the A-strain that has peaked, and then the B-strain, which typically comes later in the winter,” said Gray.
Because health professionals haven’t yet seen much of the B-strain, Northern residents can still have that to look forward to.