By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
The respiratory virus season is upon us and provincial health authorities are urging British Columbians to do “what we know works” including getting vaccinated, staying home when feeling unwell, washing hands, social distancing and wearing masks where appropriate.
“The respiratory season is unfolding as we expected it would, but we are in a very different place than we were a year ago,” noted Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry.
Henry urged common sense in using “all of our preventative tools” to reduce the risk of transmission but said mask mandates were unnecessary.
She urged influenza vaccinations because “influenza is a preventable illness.” Health Minister Adrian Dix said 1.2 million people have received their flu shot this year, twice as many as last year.
Henry said masks would not be mandated, unless a situation where an entirely new virus came along.
“I don’t believe we need that heavy hand of a mandate,” said Henry. “I don’t see the need for a mask mandate by itself because we have many other tools and a high level of protection.”
She noted that “last year we had mask mandates, but they were not in isolation. It was in the context of what we were facing at the time,” including the early stages of immunization, high rates of sickness including severe illness, absenteeism and various restrictions.
“We are in a different situation now. We have a very high level of immunity. We have vaccines for COVID-19 and influenza and we have treatments for both,” she said.
She noted that 86 per cent of BC residents aged five and over have had two doses of vaccine that when combined with infection-induced immunity means 90 per cent of BC residents have some degree of immunity.
Health authorities have been anticipating a heady year for influenza after Australia and New Zealand were hit hard in their earlier season.
Henry said the return of common respiratory viruses that have been mostly absent in the last two years has just begun in BC.
“We know the three main viruses that we need to pay attention to, COVID-19, but also influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and there are a number of other respiratory viruses that have been causing illness.”
Since early September one of the main causes of respiratory illness across the province has been enteroviruses and rhinoviruses which cause the “common cold”.
But Henry noted that enteroviruses can cause more severe illness and “we’ve seen Enterovirus D68 which is one particular strain of the virus that has been one of the drivers of children needing hospital and medical care over the last few months.”
Just this past week there has been a spike in influenza infections, mostly Influenza AH3, while at the same time there has been a leveling off of COVID-19, “so that’s not what is causing most of the respiratory illness right now,” Henry says.
There has also been an uptick in RSV, “not the dramatic increase we’re seeing in influenza but still an important increase,” she says.
And because of the various health protocols over the past couple of pandemic years some children have not been exposed to RSV and this combined with influenza has pushed pediatric care in Ontario to crisis levels.
“We have several cohorts of young people who have never been exposed to RSV before,” Henry notes. “We are seeing this in some parts of the country particularly Ontario where RSV is causing not more severe illness but because more children have not yet developed immunity to it because they weren’t exposed to it over the last few years it’s causing increased numbers of children in hospital care.”
“We are not seeing the same picture here in BC but we’re continuing to watch. We did have quite a lot of RSV circulating last fall and we’re starting to see an increase now.” The greatest impact on children in the province right now is influenza, in particular Influenza A, she said.
Meanwhile, only 51 per cent of eligible children aged 5-11 in BC have had their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines.
“A year ago we didn’t have vaccines for children, now we do. That’s an important piece in protecting children from a virus that we know doesn’t cause severe illness in most cases, but can.”
Henry also noted that immunity is a complicated picture; short term protection occurs when antibodies are in our bodies but that immunity does decrease after three to four months, she said.
“But we know that the second part – cell-mediated immunity – lasts much longer and gives strong protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death after two doses and this gets boosted up with each booster,” Henry said.
She highlighted that it’s “really important for people to get that booster dose to protect us all from infection and help dampen down the transmission for COVID-19 and the combinations we’ve seen.”
She added that most people in BC are no longer at risk of severe illness and hospitalization, and the booster is important to keep it that way.
Monitoring of wastewater continues which shows a decrease and leveling off of COVID-19 and this monitoring which is primarily in the Lower Mainland is set to be expanded to the Interior and Vancouver Island.
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