The Decibel - Why the flu is so bad this year

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

The flu season hit Canada hard and fast this year, seemingly reaching its peak in late December. But it’s not over yet: one public health official says we’re still in the ‘heavy, middle part’ of flu season.Alanna Smith explains what’s different about this year’s dominant variant of the influenza virus and the impact it’s having on Canada’s health care system.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're well into cold and flu season, and by now you've heard, it's been a bad one. So bad, we asked Globe readers to tell us about their experiences. And here are some of their stories, as read by Globe staff. A couple of weeks before Christmas on a Sunday, it all started with body aches and headaches, which continued for days and got worse. It was so bad that sleeping was difficult. I had never experienced headaches like this. before. Then after four days, a cold symptom started and lasts another four to five days,

all with no energy at all. First, my wife came down with it. Fever, aches, lethargic. I tended her, slept in a separate room, kept my distance, thinking that I would surely escape this bug. But five days later, just as she was feeling better, I woke up in the middle of the night with a faint scratch in my throat. Twelve hours later, I had a fever of 38.3. I had to embrace the fact that I had the flu. My 12-year-old son first came down with a 38-degree fever. It rapidly progressed to 40.5 degrees with severe chills.

I wanted to rule out pneumonia, so I took him to emergency for a chest x-ray. Doctors told us it wasn't pneumonia, but influenza was likely. The next day, his fever went back up to 40.5 degrees. After six days, my son's fever finally went away. It was the worst flu we've ever had. And these are just a sample of the responses we got. So what's going on? Why does the flu seem so bad this year?

Alanna Smith is a health reporter for the globe based in Calgary, and she's been covering this virus's rise and spread this winter. She's going to explain just how bad it is, what's behind this season's outbreak, and what you can do to avoid it if you still haven't gotten sick. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Hi, Alana, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. So off the top of the show, we heard some anecdotes from Globe Readers about their flu experience. And I'm sure a lot of listeners out there probably relate to these experiences because I've been hearing a lot of people that have had the flu or

know people that have had the flu. But let's get some perspective here and begin by getting a sense of what this flu season has looked like in terms of numbers. Can you tell me about the numbers? Well, I imagine a lot of people have said that it's been an intense flu season, and that is absolutely correct. This flu season, especially, it hit really early and it hit really, really hard. So it actually began officially in mid-November. What that means is once we reach a 5% positivity threshold, that's kind of the start of the season. essentially we're off to the races. But then we saw cases just grow, grow, grow. We're now at tens of thousands of cases across the country.

And we ended up having a peak in late December. And that's pretty early, all things considered, for a flu season. And at that peak, we had a positivity rate of 33.3%. And just to be, like, kind of simple with it, if you had 100 tests, nearly 34 came back positive, that's what a positivity rate is. So we hit 33.3 at the end of November. And then the last data I've seen is that we're now, we've gone down just a little bit to a positivity rate of 27%. So it's still very high, but lower than it was at the height.

And we expect to continue to see those cases going down. Okay. And these tests that we're talking about, when you talk about positivity rate, these are tests that are happening in hospitals? Exactly. And so all provinces report their data to the National Public Health Agency of Canada. And then they collect that data and then they post it every Friday. So that's where this data is from. It is important to note that a lot of people don't get tested for the flu.

Many people recover on their own. So this isn't, you know, an accurate portrayal of just how many cases there are in Canada, but it does provide an accurate representation of how much it's spreading and at what rate. Okay. And for some context, how does that positivity rate compare to previous years? I mean, it's big. 33.3% is the highest positivity rate we've recorded over the last 3%. three viral seasons. The previous high was 27.6%. That was last season in mid-February. So again,

that just shows this was such an early season for us, even when you compare it to the previous season. So you said three seasons. Why are we only looking at the last three seasons? Like, why not look back? I'm guessing the pandemic. We don't look at the pandemic because things were very different then. But why not look back to pre-pandemic times? Yeah, I think it's more of just like an apples-to-apples comparison instead of apples to oranges. I mean, COVID really changed what flu season would look like. There's a lot of symptoms of COVID that are still, and I don't mean symptoms like literally, but symptoms of the pandemic itself that have changed how flu acts.

And it's just an easier way to compare it. Can you tell me more about that? Like, how does this flu act differently past the pandemic? Well, during the pandemic, just because there were so many public restrictions in place, we just basically saw an absence of the flu season. We saw an absence of flu cases. People were staying home so they weren't getting sick, right? And they weren't spreading other viral diseases other than, of course, we know COVID.

And so it was just an exceptional decrease in cases. And now we're seeing things kind of resume, so to say, to what we'd expect normally. And so, you know, maybe down the road we could do that comparison to pre-COVID years. But for right now, it's been just kind of a strange time. So I think it's more accurate just to compare it to the viral seasons post-COVID. Okay. Let's talk about deaths this season because I know. that the flu can be quite severe for some people. So what do we know about that? Well, since August

2025, so kind of this season since the Public Health Agency of Canada started collecting that data, we've had 233 deaths reported in Canada. Additionally, we've had more than 16,000 hospitalizations, a small portion of which have required intensive care. There was a trio of deaths that really made headlines. And so that was three children. They were between the ages of five and nine. And they all died in the first two weeks of December in the Ottawa and eastern Ontario region. Yeah, it was pretty bad. And doctors came out afterwards. They said, you know, this is a stark reminder of just how serious this illness can become and really urged vaccination. This is as the season was picking up steam and kind of heading or barreling towards the peak. Yeah. And we'll talk about vaccination rates

in a minute. But before we do, let's talk about how the positivity rate is higher than past years. Is there anything unusual about how influenza has spread this year? Well, this year, the dominant strain that we're seeing is H3N2 or influenza A subcled K. And this is a very concerning strain of influenza. It hits hard. It hits fast. We weren't necessarily expecting this strain to be dominant this season. And so unfortunately, it's a bit of a mismatch for our vaccine this year.

So there are a lot of concerns that people aren't getting the vaccine. because they don't think it will protect them against the virus because of this mismatch, or people have just become complacent and they're not getting vaccination. And so lower vaccination rates are a real concern right now, especially because we have this, you know, very aggressive strain circulating right now. Tell me more about why we weren't expecting this, a subclade of the flu. We just hadn't seen it for quite a few years. It's a bit of, you know, look into the future and guess what's going to happen when they come up with the vaccine each year?

It's nobody's fault. The expectation was that maybe this wouldn't be the dominant strain. Of course, things just happen. Viruses just mutate. And that's why we have this virus circulating right now. So in some ways, it took us by surprise. But that's not to say that the vaccine isn't at all effective against this virus. It will still offer some protection. And especially it will offer protection against severe complications related to flu. So it's still a partial match, but not a perfect match. Okay. Something that I've been hearing about or something I've actually noticed in my own life, I have one kid in daycare. She's one and a half and I have another kid that's in elementary school. So I've seen a lot of flu this year already for myself. And what I noticed in the daycare class was that like all the kids got sick all at once basically, but they all seem to have different symptoms. Like some of them had gastrointestinal, some of had headaches, some of them had fatigue. And I don't know, it just seemed a bit different to me. So I'm curious. Does this variant? Does it have different symptoms than what we think of as the regular flu? Yeah, that's a great question. I think like a particular trait or characteristic of this variant is that, well, one, like I mentioned, it may evade current vaccine, but also it may cause more severe illness. Unfortunately, the symptoms themselves are still consistent to other flu strains. So you won't necessarily see a huge difference and be like, ah, I know it. That's influenza A.

You're going to see the same stuff. fever, cough, fatigue, headaches, aches, all the same stuff. But of course, it really heavily affects the young and the old. And so that's probably what you saw in your kids' daycare is just they're young and their bodies just don't have that, you know, immune capacity that adults do. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it just shows up differently in different kids. Yeah. And gastrointestinal is kind of a trait specific to kids. You're more likely to see it in children than you are in adults. So this flu has hit hard and fast, as you've mentioned. Does this mean that we've reached the peak for this year's flu season?

We have definitely reached a peak. Okay. And there's kind of two directions we can go from here. I was talking to an expert from the Public Health Agency of Canada last week. And she was telling me one direction is that, you know, we just continue to see this gradual decrease all the way until the season ends. The other avenue that we could take is that we, you know, continue to see a kind of a decline. But then we see another, however, smaller peak, maybe from a different strain, say, influenza B,

and then it continues to dwindle down until the season ends. So it's a little bit too soon to say which direction we're going, but it's a good thing we've already reached the peak. It means numbers are going down, and based on history, we're not going to see another peak of that magnitude this season. Okay, but I'm guessing that it happens in previous seasons where you have a peak and then it goes down and then it goes up a little bit more again. Yeah, it's just the nature of the virus.

We're going to see other strains circulating. It's never just one, so we may see influenza be. Okay. And just for reference, when do we normally see the peak? I guess there's no normal, right? But like I mentioned, last season, we saw that peak in February. And so that's months later. Yeah.

And so that's just how severe this particular strain of the virus is. It just hits so fast. Yeah. So if we've seen kind of an earlier peak this season, at least this one peak, perhaps, there's a smaller peak later, does this mean that the flu season will end earlier than usual? Not necessarily. It really depends kind of the nature of. of the virus, it's really a slow and gradual decline we'll likely see. And then, of course,

like I mentioned, we could see that smaller peak. Who knows if that's going to happen. But I don't think it means that we'll see a necessarily early end to the season. Okay, too bad. Yeah. Dang it. We'll be right back. Okay. So the other issue, which we talked about a little bit, is around vaccination rates, right? What are they like in Canada for this year? Yeah. I mean, we're still awaiting evaluations of vaccine uptake across Canada. We won't get those, you know, really until the season ends, at least not a robust picture. But I didn't go and look at a few of them. In Alberta, for example, which is where I'm based, it's 19%, which is very low. I also looked at Saskatchewan. It's about 21%. And similarly in Manitoba, also about 21%. And so these are, by no way,

the percentage we'd like to see for any sort of herd immunity, the virus will spread quite quickly with a population that has vaccination rates that are this low. Why do experts think that the rates are so low this year? I mean, I should say that it's not just like a symptom of this year. Vaccine rates have been pretty low for flu for, you know, quite a few years, maybe with a couple blips here and there. There are a lot of different reasons people don't want to get vaccinated. One, some people forget.

They're complacent. They have busy lives. Two, there may be limited access to vaccine in their area. Three, there may be, you know, persistent anti-vaccine sentiment. in their community in their house or, you know, just culturally, wherever their setting is. And in Alberta, for example, not to harp on it, but I live here, so it's a good example. It's been very difficult for people to get a COVID-19 vaccination this year. They actually had to put their hand up in advance, say, I want a vaccination.

They have to go to a public health clinic instead of a pharmacy. They have to get checked out by a health care expert. And some people, the majority of Albertans, would have to pay $100 out of pocket to get it. And so any sort of impact to vaccine availability or just making it more difficult for people to get it, that's going to push people away from getting vaccinated. And just because that was specific to COVID, it doesn't mean that that same understanding of vaccine availability didn't also transfer to the flu vaccine as well. That's interesting. Yeah. And it makes sense that if there are barriers up and, you know, something that you still have to do voluntarily, you know, if you have to go further or like you said, you have to pay, that makes it less appealing, I guess, for people to want to go. and get that. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my friends that I've spoken to this season, I think a major factor to lower vaccination rates, at least at this point during the viral season, is that it

happened so fast. People just didn't have the time to get it or didn't think they had to get it yet. You know, if they were just comparing it to the previous season where the peak was in February, they thought, oh, you know, I could get it over Christmas or, you know, I could get it into January. So I think that was a major concern this year is that people were just taken by surprise. So let's talk about this vaccine because, like, you know, mentioned earlier, this is not a targeted match to the variant that's spreading right now. So if this vaccine isn't specifically targeted to this version of the flu, what protection does it offer someone?

I mean, we've stressed this in a lot of our writing and so have public health experts and, you know, infectious disease experts, but this may not be a perfect match, but it is a partial match. You will be offered some protection from this vaccine. I don't have, you know, an exact number for you that we're still awaiting evaluations. but it will protect specifically against severe complications for the flu. So it's very, very important, especially for high-risk groups like the elderly, to get vaccinated. So it's worth still getting vaccinated, say at this point of the year, even if perhaps you've gotten sick, it's still worth getting that vaccine? Absolutely, yes.

Okay. So if we're seeing a higher positivity rate in flu cases this year than the last few season, what kind of impact is that having on the hospitals? Oh, it's having a huge impact. I mean, annually you're going to see hospitalizations as a result of flu-related complications, pack up emergency rooms, pack up inpatient beds. That's no surprise. But again, because this took, you know, kind of everybody by storm just because of just how fast it came, it really just, you know, tore down on hospitals.

To use the example in Alberta, we actually had doctors call recently for a state of emergency, for the government to actually declare a state of emergency because their hospitals are so overburdened that they think that they can no longer safely accept patients. How would declaring a state of emergency help hospitals? They want the emergency declaration, but they said, you know, they just want additional measures to help with moving patients exactly where they need to go so that they can get the care. Edmonton is a very specific area that has specific issues that are adding to overcrowding.

It's had rapid population growth. We have an aging population here in Alberta. So there's, you know, more complications essentially with care. they also have this huge catchment area that they accept patients from. So pretty much any jurisdiction north of Edmonton up into the territories, those patients come down and they're treated in Edmonton hospitals. So there's just a lot happening in Edmonton in addition to the flu season. And so what they were asking for is, you know, better triage systems, directing patients

from outside of Edmonton to other hospitals when possible. moving alternative level of care patients outside of hospitals. ALC patients are those who no longer require a hospital bed, but essentially have nowhere else to go. And they may need to be sent to, like, a long-term care facility, for example. Another major part of this ask for an emergency declaration is that physicians want to see more money to hire additional staff or to open additional beds. What they say is that if they were to declare a state of emergency, which would be under the Public Health Act, then it could release these funds in a quicker. way to be able to basically afford the staff and space needed to take care of patients safely. Just how bad are hospital emergency departments right now in terms of wait times?

They're pretty bad. I mean, people are awaiting, if not hours, days in emergency departments. There's a specific case that we wrote about in Alberta this week. It was the case of a man named Art Peck. He's 79 years old. And he spent more than 90 hours in an emergency department, which is, you know, nearly four full days. And it was in this ER where he was waiting for an inpatient bed that his health really deteriorated. Later, they found out that he was infected with influenza A, but as a result of him laying on a stretcher for this many days with limited access to a washroom, inability to eat or really move at all, it, one, made his Parkinson's disease worse. It, two, made him angry, agitated. His daughter, who explained his story to me, said

that he became, you know, shaking uncontrollably by Wednesday. So it was a very long time where he wasn't able to rest because there's fluorescent lights, there's people talking, there's patients screaming, again, limited access to care. It just was, it was an awful situation for him. He's thankfully recovering now in an inpatient bed. But those four days, what his daughter is really worried about is what the long-term effect will be. Another example here in Alberta, which isn't necessarily related to flu, but is related to this kind of overburdened health care system, especially hospital emergency departments,

is there was a recent death of a 44-year-old man, a father of three in Edmonton. And he was in an emergency room for eight hours before he passed away. It was at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital. And we actually later found out that he was one of three deaths that day. The government has now ordered a fatality increent to his death. Okay, so that's interesting that they're investigating that death. them. But what has the Alberta government said about the call to declare a state of emergency? So when this news first broke that doctors in Emmettin were calling on the government to declare a state of emergency,

the government actually responded and said that that declaration would be misguided. Since then, we've had a lot more talk from the government about what exactly is happening with emergency departments across Alberta. And they have acknowledged that they are under significant strain. In many ways, they're relating the significant strain directly to the viral. season. But doctors have said it's it goes much further than the viral season. Like I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of other issues that are adding to this crisis. But they actually announced yesterday the government, the creation of a new physician role in ERs in Calgary and Evanton. And this physician essentially would help triage and treat patients. And they think that this is, you know, in one way that

they can help move patients or get patients the care that they need a little bit quicker. Okay. So, so this flu is, of course, just one of a number of respiratory virus. that plague us at this time of year. Are we also seeing a lot of COVID and RSV cases bogging down hospitals? We are still seeing COVID and RSV cases, though, to a much less extent than we're seeing the flu. The latest data I saw, for example, was like I mentioned, so flu had a positivity rate of 27%. But if you were to compare it to COVID, 5.3% positivity rate, RSV, just 3.4% positivity rate. So it's definitely not as much as an impact. And RSV is actually, an interesting case because this season, most newborns and infants across Canada had access to

a single dose antibody injection. And what this does is provide passive immunity. And so we just have not seen the intensity of RSV this season like we have in the past. And a lot of that is linked to the availability of this injection. Well, that's some good news there. Yeah, there we go. See, we'd find some good news. Yeah, some good news there. We actually have a question from a reader or somewhat related to this. It comes from us from Cheryl Paneo in Ontario. She writes, with COVID still around, how do you know if you actually had the flu

or if it was coronavirus, especially now that COVID tests are harder to come by? Oh, I wish I had an easy answer for them. It's not so simple. Symptoms are still very similar between any respiratory virus, you know, calm and cold, the flu, COVID. One thing to look out for

is that flu symptoms generally appear, you know, about one to four days after exposure. And some of the key features are like a sudden experience of fever, cough, aches, chills, sore throat, a loss of appetite. But unfortunately, yeah, unless you have a test, you can't, you know, I guess, necessarily know for sure. Can you get tested? Can you buy a test?

You can, yeah. You can purchase tests. I believe you can purchase them online. And then, of course, if illness is so severe that you require a hospitalization or you want to visit the emergency department, they, of course, test for the virus as well. Okay. And if you've had this flu or you think you've had it, does that mean you're unlikely to get it again this year? No, unfortunately not. You can definitely be reinfected. Yeah, I think if there's another strain circulating, you can be infected with that strain. Oh, no. Okay. I know. Now we're back to bad news. Yeah. I mean, you know what, though? That is also like a, that tells us that it's really important to get a vaccination, even if it's, you know, later in the season. So there's that. Exactly. Yes.

Okay, I have another reader question for you. This time it's from Lisa Snyder in Toronto. So she says, My daughter and many in her class got the flu a few weeks ago. We relax and miss getting our flu shot a month ago. But we likely would have made the effort if the government pushed us more to get it. Why wasn't that a priority for them? So, Alana, can you give us a sense of what some provincial governments have done around public vaccination campaigns this year? I mean, I hear that sentiment a lot. Like, I just didn't really remember or know that it was. was that season, you know, there just wasn't enough advertising, if it's fair to call it that, of the vaccine or where to get it, or how to get it, or why to get it even. And so I think we have seen pretty much across the country, it just hasn't been so prominent. It's not like, go get

your vaccine now. You almost have to search in some ways to find information on vaccination. It's not impossible. It's out there. There is some public health campaigns ongoing, but especially during the past year or so, and even with the outbreak of measles, another disease that has spread with reckless abandon, there was a lot of criticism from the public that they're not hearing enough from health officials. In Ontario, they said, we want to hear more from Kieran Moore, the chief medical officer of health. In Alberta, they said, where are the politicians? We haven't heard from them for weeks, even as, you know, measles was picking up ground, and it's similar to flu. We just haven't heard from officials like what we, you know, kind of got used to during the COVID-19

pandemic where people were up every day explaining the situation. Now, I'm not saying that people want that again, but there is a stark difference between the public health communications we had then and the public health communications we have now and this kind of push for vaccination, especially at a time when there's a lot of persistent anti-vaccine sentiment or, you know, just hesitancy towards vaccines because of this miss and disinformation. Yeah, very good point. Just to wrap up, Alana, I was hoping you could share some of the practical tips you've learned from experts about the best way to avoid the flu if you haven't gotten it yet. I mean, some of these may sound really simple, but they truly can protect you against getting the

flu. Wash her hands. Stay home when you're sick. Not to sound like a broken record, but, you know, clean, high touch surfaces. Wear a mask if you think you're going to go to a public setting where there may be, you know, exposure to certain diseases or certain viruses. But your best protection, of course, is through vaccination. Hours after we talk. Hours after we talk, public health released updated numbers. So we brought Alana back on. Hi, Alana. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show at the end of a Friday.

Of course, happy to do it. Yeah, so six hours after we spoke, the Public Health Agency of Canada released some new flu numbers. So what do we learn from them? Well, you know, we were joking a lot about good and bad news. It is actually good news. So now we can end our Friday with good news. We've actually seen a pretty sharp decline

in the number of tests that are coming back positive for influenza. So like I'd mentioned during our first, earlier interview, it was about 27% the last data we had. It's now dropped to 18.1%. So nearly 10 percentage points. That is a significant drop. That means there's definitely hope on the horizon that we are barreling towards an end of flu, but of course it may be slow. We don't know what the future holds, but that's that's good news. We also have an update on hospitalizations, ICU numbers, and deaths. There's now been 301 deaths in Canada since August related to flu. And now we've had more than 18,000 hospitalizations, 406 people have required intensive care. This is a jump compared to the numbers

that I provided earlier. It's not surprising that there's been a jump. When you follow a peak, which is what we talked about in late December, it's likely that you'll see an increase in hospitalizations, deaths, and ICU numbers. And so this is just that. But that positivity number of 18.1 percent, that is a trend in the right direction. Alana, thank you so much for coming back on. I appreciate it. That was Alan Smith, a health reporter for the globe. A special thanks to readers Natasha Morgan, Brendan Shields, and Cheryl Paneo for sharing their flu experiences with the globe.

And to my globe colleagues, Yang Sun, Kasha Mahalovich, and Adrian Chung for voicing their anecdotes. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhail Stein, and Ali Graham. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.