Will there be a surge in influenza cases after COVID-19 in Canada?Expert weighted-nationwide

Canadian COVID-19 (New Coronavirus Infection) Something else happened this winter — the country rarely saw cases influenza..

According to experts, strict public health measures such as wearing masks, physical distance, and stay-at-home orders helped keep the flu, which spreads primarily through droplets, away.

But what does that mean for the flu as more people get vaccinated against COVID-19 and things resume? Will there be a surge in infectious diseases in Canada, or will it be a “flu-free” year?

This is what the experts say.

There are virtually no cases of influenza between 2020 and 2021

by The latest report published by Health Canada’s FluWatchSo far, only 68 influenza detections have been reported during the 2020-2021 influenza season.

According to the report, this is “significantly lower” than the last six seasons of influenza, with an average of 49,641 cases detected.

“Public health measures implemented to reduce the effects of COVID-19 continue to prevent influenza transmission within the community,” the report said.

Dr. Julie Bettinger is a professor of pediatrics at BC Children’s Hospital and the University of British Columbia.

She is also an epidemiologist in Canada’s vaccination surveillance program, ACTIVE, and has been collecting influenza surveillance data at 12 tertiary care children’s hospitals throughout Canada since 2003.

According to Bettinger, AC Live records an average of about 500 cases and may record several deaths associated with the flu.

But this season, she said there were no cases, hospitalizations or deaths.

“It’s honestly impressive,” she said. “And I don’t think any of us involved in this surveillance predicted it.”

She said in March 2020 that the flu season is still “real”

“And when things started to blockade public health measures, it just fell sharply.”

She said this could be “directly due” to the public health measures implemented, including wearing masks and physical distance.

What will happen to the flu season from 2021 to 2022?

Dr. James Dickinson, a professor of family medicine at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, said he really “doesn’t know” what it will look like in the next flu season.

Dickinson, who runs Alberta’s community flu monitoring program, said this was mainly because researchers didn’t fully understand why this year’s flu was so low.

“Maybe (influenza) could explode,” he said, if it was because the new coronavirus and influenza virus interacted and COVID-19 proved to be predominant.

“But all the hygiene measures we have taken really stopped the flu, and if we keep those measures, we can stop the flu,” he said.

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“But we simply can’t predict because we don’t know.”

In the end, Dickinson said, “there is a wide range of uncertainties going forward.”

“We are tracking it and trying to understand it,” he said. “This is a very new phenomenon and a new situation.

“I haven’t had a flu epidemic so far, so I really don’t know what will happen after that.”

Immune weakness?

Dr. Timothy Sly, an epidemiologist and emeritus professor at Ryerson University’s School of Public Health, said in an email to Global News that this year’s immunity to influenza is “expected” to be lower than in the previous year. Most have protected themselves from all respiratory viruses. “

Sly pointed out the teacher as an example, saying that when returning to school after summer vacation, many would get sick with a cold within the first week or two.

“(This is) mainly because of weakened immunity during the summer and suddenly surrounded by many small children,” he explained.

However, according to Bettinger, influenza strains change from year to year, so if you get sick in one season, the antibodies your immune system produces may not protect you from the next year’s viral illness.

“I I don’t know what we can guess because it wasn’t circulating that people don’t have antibodies because we really don’t know, “she said. “We still don’t really understand what circulates and what it looks like.”

Mask wearing and closed border

Another factor that can affect the number of influenza cases this season is how long people will continue to adhere to the public health measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sly said flu cases could surge if people were “allowed to take off their masks and approach this fall and winter.”

Conversely, Sly said that if people were still taking COVID-19 precautions by the time the flu season came, they could see another year with fewer flu infections.

He added that by the flu season, overseas travel could be “still reduced”, “meaning less imported flu this year.”

Look to the Southern Hemisphere

To the south of the equator, the flu season usually lasts from April to October.

Canada can usually look to the Southern Hemisphere to determine what the flu season looks like at home. Experts also look south of the equator and track various strains of circulating influenza.

Dickinson said the flu season had just begun in the Southern Hemisphere, but added that Canada needs to “especially carefully” monitor what happens during the peak seasons of June, July and August.

“We will have to see what happens to them,” he said. “And it may give us some indication of what will happen here.”

Bettinger reiterated Dickinson’s remarks that Canada is in a “true advantage” because the flu season is reversed.

“We are often given time to make some kind of preparation based on what is happening there,” she said.

However, Bettinger said there were few cases of influenza last year, making it more difficult to predict the particular strains that will be the most problematic this year.

She said researchers usually have a lot of data to help them make “knowledge-based guesses.”

“In the absence of virtually no cases, that would be really difficult,” she said.

“Whenever your number starts to get really small, any kind of quote you make, any kind of modeling you do, is much less reliable.”

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