For the first time since the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemia, the number of new Scotland scotians who die from influenza exceeds the number of Covid deaths.
According to the latest respiratory surveillance report in the province, 124 New Scotland have died for influenza during the 2024-25 respiratory season, which extends since August 25, 2024, and will increase until August 29, 2025. There have been 108 Covid deaths so far this season.
Dr. Lisa Barrett, a doctor of infectious diseases, said that the fact that there are fewer deaths due to Covid than influenza is not any positive development for the general population.
“Some people have said: ‘Oh, thank God, we return to normal,” he said. “And I say, ‘Well, now we have two viruses, not just one, which are still in the really important category for hospitalizations, bad lungs and deaths.”
Barrett said that this year’s global flu season was one of the worst of the last decade.
“Yes, influenza has taken care of Covid, but both are higher than we would like them to be,” he said.
Dr. Robert Strang, medical director of Health of Nueva Scotia, said that pandemics do not last forever and COVID-19 has become endemic. He said it is not surprising that influenza deaths have overcome Covid-19 deaths.
“This is what we would expect when returning to a more normal respiratory virus season with a mixture of virus,” he said.
Where COVID-19 dominated so much discussion in recent years, other respiratory diseases (influenza and respiratory syncitial viruses (RSV) in particular) did not receive so much attention.
“For some people, we don’t need to be so afraid of Covid, but we must be very respectful and take all respiratory viruses,” Strang said.
They are encouraging people to practice the same measures that were preached during the peak days of the pandemic. That means washing your hands, using masks when appropriate, staying at home during a disease and vaccinating.
But, at this last point, less people are doing that.
The data provided by the province show that, although 29 percent of the general population received their flu vaccines for the 2024-25 season, it was only 18 percent for COVID-19.
For the campaign of the previous year, the percentages were 32.8 percent and 22.8 percent, respectively.
“These vaccines are very effective against prevention … serious diseases and death,” Strang said. “We should focus on that. How do we reduce that number of deaths from respiratory viruses? And it is through vaccines.”
Strang said that the province will expand eligibility for the RSV vaccine this fall to include people of 75 years and more, regardless of where they live.
Previously, eligibility for the vaccine financed with public funds was restricted to people 60 years and higher than long -term or hospital care that expected long -term care.
