The BC Centre for Disease Control (CDC) is urging people to get vaccinated ahead of the holiday season.
They say there’s a chance the vaccine could spread as people celebrate with friends and family over the holiday season.
The CDC’s Influenza lead, Dr. Danuta Skowronski, says it’s been a pretty quiet season thus far.
“But we’re seeing now that it’s starting to ramp up and once it starts to ramp up, it doesn’t recede,” she said. “So, we’re anticipating further increases going into the holiday season, which means the virus is going to be ‘ping-ponging’ across age groups as they’re mixing during social gatherings.”
Skowronski adds it takes a couple of weeks from when you get the vaccine, to when it triggers antibodies that’ll protect you.
“Lots of people in close settings, the virus likes that,” she added.
H1N1 has been the dominant strain so far, unlike H3N2 last year, which Skowronski says targets the elderly mostly.