REGINA – Saskatchewan's latest Community Respiratory Illness Surveillance Program report is out and it confirms what many residents already know: that flu season is in full swing.
The CRISP report for Dec. 14 to 27 was released on Jan. 5 by the province, and those numbers show influenza is the most dominant respiratory virus circulating right now in the province, far ahead of both COVID-19 and RSV.
For Dec. 14 to 20 there were 1210 positive lab tests in the province for influenza with a test positivity of 40.8 per cent. That compared to 162 for COVID-19 with a positivity of 5.6 per cent, and 73 RSV for a positivity of 2.7 per cent.
For Dec. 21 to 27 the number of positive lab tests for influenza dipped to 935 for 38.5 per cent, compared to 130 for COVID-19 for 5.3 per cent, and 63 for RSV for 2.9 per cent.
According to the report, while influenza test positivity has decreased it remains high. They report that since August 24, 4,460 influenza detections have been reported of which 4438 or 99.5 per cent were influenza A. Among the subtyped influenza A detections (521), influenza A (H3N2) accounted for 76 per cent or 397 of detections.
They also report that approximately 38.9 per cent of flu cases were in individuals less than 20 years of age.
While influenza cases did start to go down, hospitalizations for both influenza and RSV have increased during the reporting period. Hospital admissions for influenza rose from 98 for Nov. 30 to Dec. 6, to 138 for Dec. 7 to 13, to 189 for Dec. 14 to 20, and back to 179 for Dec. 21-27. ICU admissions jumped from three on Nov. 30 to Dec. 6, to 15 for Dec. 7 to 13, to 22 for Dec. 14 to 20, and back to 15 for Dec. 21 to 27.
Hospital admissions for RSV jumped from 10 for Dec. 7 to 13 up to 23 for Dec. 14 to 20, and then back to 16 for Dec. 21 to 27. There was only one admission to ICU the week of Dec. 14 to 20.
Hospital admissions continue to decline for COVID-19 down from 36 for Dec. 7 to 13, to 27 for Dec. 14 to 20 and 11 for Dec. 21 to 27.
Sadly, there were two deaths reported for influenza — one during the week of Dec. 14 to 20, the other the week of Dec. 21 to 27. There was one COVID-19 death the week of Dec. 7 to 13.
The latest vaccination numbers indicate that for the week of Dec. 21 to 27 that 20.6 per cent of the population were immunized with the influenza vaccine, with 13.6 per cent having received the COVID-19 vaccine.
