A chart from the province's respiratory virus dashboard illustrate the unusual severity of this year's flu season, on pace to surpass last year's figures, while province-wide immunization rates continue to trend at a decade low.--Image Alberta/Respiratory Virus Dashboard
newsdesk@medicinehatnews.com
Alberta is straining under the pressure of a particularly difficult flu season heading into the new year, with more than 11,000 cases of influenza confirmed according to the most recent provincial numbers.
The last week of the year saw the province contending with 2,719 influenza cases and an influenza positivity rate of 35.95 per cent.
A total of 380 influenza patients were in hospital heading into the new year, with 24 in the ICU. Seventy-three Albertans have died from influenza so far this season.
In the South zone, which includes Medicine Hat, 923 cases have been confirmed to date in the 2025-26 season.
It is shaping up to be an unusually severe year for respiratory illness, according to provincial metrics.
By Jan. 12, 2025 the province had seen a little more than 3,000 recorded flu cases, and as of Jan. 4, 25 deaths.
Heading into the new year, this season’s laboratory-confirmed cases area already equivalent to 78 per cent of last year’s total cases, accumulated over the 12 months spanning August 2024 to August 2025.
The flu season typically continues well into the spring.
The vast majority of infections in Alberta have been the H3N2 strain of influenza A, which experts say is incongruent with this year’s flu vaccine.
COVID-19 and RSV numbers remain much lower than previous years, with 3,731 Albertans diagnosed with laboratory-confirmed COVID and 939 with RSV so far this season.
Last year, a total of 5,782 cases of RSV were recorded, along with 12,414 cases of COVID-19.
Still, 77 Albertans have died as a result of COVID-19 and three more from RSV so far this season.
Influenza vaccines have kept pace with last year’s numbers at this time, with around 950,000 doses administered to date.
However, this number still represents a drop-off from years before 2024. More than one million people were vaccinated by the end of the year in 2023, with more than 1.1 million the year before and more than 1.2 million in 2022.
More than 57,000 influenza vaccines have been administered in the South Zone.
Vaccine coverage in the South zone represents 17.2 per cent of the population, below the provincial average of 18.8 per cent.
Last year, province-wide flu shot uptake was 21 per cent, the lowest vaccination rate since 2010-11.
This year’s vaccination campaign is still ongoing.
