Flu season is upon us in full swing and health officials are saying that it's arrived early this year because fewer people have been vaccinated this year than in previous flu seasons.
Here in Ontario, Canada there has been a reported 20% drop in vaccination rates. Hospitals and doctors offices are sending so many samples and cultures to be tested that the province is on the verge of running out of nasal test swabs!
At this point during a normal flu season, Ontario sees an average of about 400 confirmed positive tests for seasonal flu. This year? 1075 so far. And it's steadily rising.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Allison McGeer of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto believes that the culprit may be last years aggressive H1N1 campaign.
"People are kind of flued out," said McGeer. "There was a lot of publicity about the pandemic last year and it didn't feel as bad. It actually wasn't great when you look at the numbers, but it wasn't nearly as bad as we were expecting it to be."
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Bambi Blue is a freelance writer, editor, and codemonkey living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She moonlights as a jazz musician, a social butterfly, and most apparently a weisenheimer. Loves to cook, hates to clean, and can easily be found on Twitter.
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