Get your flu shot to support the medical system, B.C. doctor says

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A doctor in Delta, B.C. says it’s particularly important to get your flu shot this year, as the province continues through the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because it’s difficult to predict how bad flu season will be in advance, Delta hospital and ER doctor Michael Curry cautions British Columbians against ignoring their regular vaccinations.

In an average year, about 3,000 to 5,000 Canadians, many of them in long-term care, pass away from the flu.

“In an outbreak year, it can be considerably worse for a small percentage of people who get it. It can be a deadly illness, so just because it’s the flu doesn’t mean it’s not serious,” says Curry.

“Last year, probably because of COVID-19 restrictions, masking, social distancing, etcetera, the amount of flu in British Columbia was very low, but we know in past years that has not been the case, and definitely in my experience in the emergency department, I’m seeing a lot more respiratory infections than I was seeing a year ago.”

Most of those infections aren’t COVID-19, says Curry, which tells him that the respiratory viruses that have been common in B.C. for years are coming back again.

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Getting the shot will not only protect you and your loved ones from the flu but will also help keep the medical system functioning. An influx of sick people could put an even bigger burden on the healthcare system, he explains, which is already under enormous pressure to handle high numbers of COVID-19 patients, Curry explains.

“We’ve got hospital systems in other parts of Canada that are already working at or above their peak capacity, and if we toss them thousands of people with the flu and other respiratory infections seeking care in emergency departments, intensive care units, and hospitals, the system can’t take that,” he says.

It’s best to get the shot between October and December, he adds.

Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization says “COVID-19 vaccines may be given at the same time as, or any time before or after, other vaccines, including live, non-live, adjuvanted or unadjuvanted vaccines.”

NACI now recommends that #Covid19 vaccines may be given at the same time as (or any time before or after) other vaccines, such as the influenza vaccine. Learn more: https://t.co/i5XBoneGvD pic.twitter.com/8VrCMRsYXZ

— Health Canada and PHAC (@GovCanHealth) September 28, 2021

Curry is reassured by the amount of information researchers have learned about new mRNA vaccines, saying it could allow for the creation of a “better more tailored flu shot that can be formulated more quickly to the outbreak, rather than the 18-month lead time we have right now.” However, he also reaffirms his confidence in the flu shot British Columbians have access to this year.