For the primary time because the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic, the variety of Nova Scotians dying from influenza exceeds the variety of COVID deaths.
In response to the province’s newest respiratory watch report, 124 Nova Scotians have died from influenza throughout the 2024-25 respiratory season, which runs from Aug. 25, 2024, and can go up till Aug. 29, 2025. There have been 108 COVID deaths up to now this season.
Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious ailments physician, mentioned the very fact there are fewer deaths attributable to COVID than influenza isn’t any sort of optimistic improvement for the final inhabitants.
“Some people have said, ‘Oh, thank goodness, we’re back to normal,’” she mentioned. “And I’m like, ‘Well, now we’ve got two viruses — not just one — that are still in the really important category for hospitalizations, bad lungs and deaths.”
Barrett mentioned this 12 months’s world flu season was one of many worst of the final decade.
Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious ailments physician and researcher at Dalhousie College in Halifax, says lots of people are dying from influenza and COVID-19. (Patrick Callaghan/CBC)
“Yes, influenza has taken over from COVID, but they’re both higher than we’d like them to be,” she mentioned.
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of well being, mentioned pandemics don’t final without end and COVID-19 has grow to be endemic. He mentioned it’s not stunning that influenza deaths have topped COVID-19 deaths.
“This is what we’d expect as we return to more of a normal respiratory virus season with a mix of viruses,” he mentioned.
The place COVID-19 dominated a lot dialogue in previous years, different respiratory sicknesses — influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) specifically — didn’t get practically as a lot consideration.
“For some people, we don’t need to be as strongly afraid of COVID, but we need to be very respectful and take seriously all respiratory viruses,” mentioned Strang.
He’s encouraging folks to practise the identical measures that have been preached throughout the peak days of the pandemic. Which means washing fingers, sporting masks the place applicable, staying residence throughout an sickness and getting vaccinated.
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of well being, says folks must take all respiratory viruses critically. (CBC)
However, on the latter level, fewer persons are doing that.
Information supplied by the province reveals that whereas 29 per cent of the general inhabitants bought their flu pictures for the 2024-25 season, it was solely 18 per cent for COVID-19.
For the earlier 12 months’s marketing campaign, the chances have been 32.8 per cent and 22.8 per cent, respectively.
“These vaccines are very effective against preventing … severe illness and death,” mentioned Strang. “That’s what we should be focusing on. How do we reduce that number of respiratory virus deaths? And it’s through vaccines.”
Strang mentioned the province will probably be increasing eligibility for the RSV vaccine this fall to incorporate folks 75 and above, no matter the place they stay.
Beforehand, eligibility for the publicly funded vaccine was restricted to folks 60 and above residing in long-term care or in hospital awaiting long-term care placement.
