TORONTO, Ont. – If you’ve noticed more people around you coughing and sneezing — that’s because the flu seems to be more aggressive right now than in 2012, according to health officials in Canada and the U.S.
Toronto Public Health said as of Jan. 2, it had 199 new lab-confirmed cases reported. At this time in 2012, there only eight new cases reported in the city.
According to Health Canada, the number of cases of the flu were way up by mid-December compared to 2012, and the flu season hasn’t even peaked yet.
Health officials in the United States are concerned, saying no flu season has hit this hard and fast in over a decade.
A U.S. health official said many cases apparently have to do with a strain of influenza called subtype B, which is not included in this flu season’s vaccine. Experts warn that you’re infectious for a full day before you show any symptoms at all.
Even so, if you haven’t had a flu shot, health officials are urging you to get one.
The flu typically strikes any time between November and April, with a peak somewhere near the end of January.
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Flu shots do allow your immune system to do what it was meant to do. Dead virus is introduced to your immune system which reacts as it would to live virus by creating an immunity. Then if you encounter the live virus you’re already immune. If you wait to encounter the live virus the only difference will be that you’ll suffer the ill effects and infect others. We could also go live naked in the woods as nature intended, but how do you think that would work out?
To each their own. but the flu shot contains more than “dead virus”. Do your research and make your own decisions. But I for one will NEVER EVER take a flu shot. The immune system works in a way that it does not need POISONS introduced to it in order to work.
Pigs did fly when we had the swine flu. All joking aside, this year’s vaccine does cover the nasty strains circulating in Ontario and most of the USA.
I will get the flu shot when pigs fly and our government can be fully trusted. Plus isn’t it funny how the one strain that is causing the most “havoc” right now is the one that is NOT included in the most current flu vaccine.? I’ll let my immune system do what it is meant to do thank you very much.
The vaccine this year is a very good match to the strains circulating in ONTARIO. It is misleading to announce to the listeners that the vaccine may not protect you. You could get more appropriate information from Canadian officials and Canadian data.