Atlantic Xpat

What Zoe says. Get your damn flu shot.

To add to the anecdotals....I've had the flu shot every year since I've lived in Canada, as has the wife and kids. Thats 16 years for me and her & 11 & 8 for them. None of us have experienced any side effects beyond a sore arm. My youngest has a underlying medical condition that made her more susceptible to respiratory infections so it has always been a no brainer for us. As I say, we believe in herd immunity through vaccination. In Newfoundland the govt is trying to get flu vaccination rates up to 80something percent this year to avoid the double whammy of flu and covid. Flu shots are free, either at special clinics or through your local pharmacy - which is where we got ours

Zoe Bell

me too, I don't think I've ever had the flu, Ben got it one year and was non functional for about 2 weeks and still feeling the effects 6 weeks later

scrubbedexpat091

It might be free in your province, but that isn't true for all provinces. BC doesn't cover flu shot for all, only certain groups.

The province only bought 2,045,000 doses, more than a typical year, but not enough to vaccinate everyone, and looking like this year they may not even be able to vaccinate everyone who want it as demand appears higher than expected. Average year 1.4 million get it, population is just over 5 million.

spouse of scouse

Some comparative data from Australia for the 2019 and 2020 influenza seasons. Population for both years 25 million.

2019
13 million vaccines administered.
247,000 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza.

2020
Increase in demand, 18 million vaccines administered.
21,000 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza.

caretaker

Because your wife is in the high risk category, your shot should be covered.

scrubbedexpat091

Yes mine is, I am not worried about charges, just was pointing its not universally covered in BC as it might be in other provinces apparently.

My issue has been actually finding anywhere that has it, I have an appointment booked next week assuming the pharmacy has stock come appointment day.

Danny B

Genuine question, does the flu shot protect against all variants of the flu? e.g H1N2 swine flu etc.?

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...entral-alberta

scrubbedexpat091

That flu strain appears to be pretty rare in humans, and according to the article, they even went as far as testing COVID tests taken in the past 2 weeks for influenza as well, and found no additional cases, but will offer people getting COVID tests, influenza test as well at the same time.

The strain components for the 2020/2021 Northern Hemisphere influenza vaccines are:

• A/Guangdong-Maonan/SWL1536/2019 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus
• A/Hong Kong/2671/2019 (H3N2)-like virus
• B/Washington/02/2019-like (B/Victoria lineage) virus
• B/Phuket/3073/2013 - like virus (Yamagata lineage) (in quadrivalent vaccines only)

scilly

We had ours on Monday, from our doctor as usual ............. we've both had them for the last 15 years, and only once have gone to the pharmacy, when we were going on holiday in mid-October and the doctor's office had not yet received the vaccine.

It was much more regimented this year .............. make an appointment, 2 1-hour periods each weekday from October 13 available for flu shots only, nothing else to be discussed, and flu shots not given at any other time. Then sit in the waiting room for 5 minutes afterwards before leaving to make sure no adverse effects. Otherwise, the "usual" covid precautions of only arriving 5 minutes before appointment, mask, hand sanitizing, etc.

Mine did hurt when the needle went in, which is unusual, but otherwise no effects ..................... but I'd made the appointment back on October 13, and 2nd November was the first available date. They'd opened the booking on the previous Thursday

scilly

No, it does not.

What they do is take close note of the 4 or 5 flu strains that were most prevalent in Australia and New Zealand during their winter (ie, our summer), and then produce a vaccine that contains (3-)4-(-5) of those.

The flu virus mutates rapidly every year, this is why it has to be re-done. I gather that basing the vaccine that we are given in October on the strains prevalent in the previous 4-5months down under is as close as we could get to being protected against the "new" strains. Antibodies may well remain in our bodies from previous vaccinations/infections, but are not effective against the new mutants.

scrubbedexpat091

My appointment for flu shot was cancelled. Got this email this morning from the pharmacy.

Unfortunately your appointment has been cancelled due to vaccine availability. We are working together with the government to get flu vaccines into pharmacies as soon as possible. A notification will be sent to you if flu vaccines become available. We appreciate your understanding. .


I think the government really underestimate demand this year.

sharkus

Until last year I'd never got the flu shot. I'm not anti-vax or anything like that, and I know I'm somewhat stupid not getting it, the whole herd immunity thing being a good thing. However, I'd never had it in england, and I don't recall it ever being pushed hard, possibly not at all in england. I chatted with my mum about it, asking if I was perhaps forgetting, and she said that usually they'd only mention it for the very young, old, or those with medial reasons.

Why did I do it last year? I saw the notification that they'd have someone in the office to administer it, and I thought, why not. So off I went.

This year, for somewhat obvious reasons I got one too. A few weeks ago I'd been checking the Shoppers website to see if there was availability near me, and there wasn't any at all. Rexall was the same. I left it a little while and checked last week, and found the local Shoppers claimed to have availability, so I filled out the online form thing, and popped over. There was maybe a 10 minute wait, then I got the shot.

I think I got lucky, as it appears Rexall is out of supply, and re-checking shoppers, I don't see anywhere having it available.

It's somewhat bemusing to me that there is no availability given the various top medial bods going on about how you really, really, really should get the flu shot, so would that not have factored into how much of the flu shot they obtained? Did they really thing people would ignore getting it even though they are being told to get it?

scrubbedexpat091

BC bought 2 million, which is more than most years, there are 5 million in BC, and demand appears to be more than they expected.

Senior high dose vaccine is in short supply as well.

BristolUK

Quite early in my time in Canada I saw this bloody great queue at the pharmacy that turned out to be for the flu shot. That made me wonder and I did a little research.

I discovered that hospitalisations and deaths in Canada for flu in relation to population size were completely out of whack to that of the UK so I thought that a good reason to take it seriously in Canada.

scrubbedexpat091

Fraser Health region in BC running low on flu shot and almost gone through their publicly funded allotment. (this is also the region where the huge surge in COVID is happening.)

"514,000 doses the region has distributed are about 90 per cent of its allotment of publicly funded vaccines from the province, with 10 per cent left to come in the next few weeks."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-70k-1.5796505


I checked Rexall, Shoppers, London Drugs again today, no availability, and London Drugs and Rexell not even taking appointments anymore, guess the wait list exceeds what they hope to receive.