Flu vaccine in focus in region, as COVID vaccination effort continues
Posted Oct 21, 2021 03:45:00 PM.
It was all things vaccine at Wednesday night's Waterloo Region Board of Health meeting.
And it's more than just COVID-19 shots getting attention.
It is flu season, and coming off a year where there were no influenza cases reported in the region, this year will be tough to predict.
David Aoki, the region's manager of infectious disease and sexual health, said this year's flu season will be tough to predict because of last year's COVID restrictions.
“Schools weren't in session,” he said, “And similar to COVID, children may not get as bad of symptoms, they tend to act as very good incubators and infectious agents, spreading it among the community as they congregate.”
“We didn't have those things (last year), so it did mitigate the spread. This year, although there is still mitigation in place, there is reopening and there's less mitigation.”
Aoki added last year, local public health administered more flu vaccines than any other year to date, and anticipates this year will see even greater numbers.
He said so far this year, almost 50,000 doses of the flu shot have been given out, on par with what we saw in 2020.
