COVID-19: It’s definitely not the flu

By GILLIAN SLADE on December 5, 2020.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

There are still no cases of influenza identified in the whole of Alberta this season.

By Dec. 7, in the 2017/2018 season, Alberta had 2,637 lab confirmed cases with 531 people in hospital and six dead.

It is important to note that the hospitalized cases for influenza are reported as an accumulating total from the beginning of each flu season. When it comes to COVID, hospitalizations are based on daily cases.

For COVID-19, there were 575 in hospital on Dec. 2 but many more since the beginning of the pandemic.

“… to date, 2,038 people have been hospitalized – and that number will continue to rise,” said Tom McMillan spokesperson for Alberta Health. “For the 2019/20, flu season, 1,534 people were hospitalized with influenza.”

At the end of last year’s influenza season, in the spring, there had been 8,470 cases of influenza A and B in the province.

As of Dec. 3, Alberta had identified 63,023 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and as of Friday there were 18,243 active cases in the province.

“This means there are twice as many active cases present in one day than cases of influenza identified during the entire flu season last year,” said McMillan. “Last year, the peak number of influenza patients in ICU at any given time was 30. As of Dec. 3, there were 97 in the ICU … with COVID-19.”

The latest influenza report indicates that 1,337,957 Albertans have received the influenza vaccine this season and of those 83,031 were in the south zone.

This week the provincial government announced its plans to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine next year.

Many pharmacies and doctors offices are providing influenza immunization shots but families with children less than five years old can make an appointment (online, see link below) with AHS.

https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/influenza.aspx

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