Health officials urge parents to have children vaccinated amid 'dramatic increase' in flu cases

Health officials in B.C. are urging parents to get their children vaccinated against the flu as the province grapples with an earlier-than-usual flu season,leading to long waits at major emergency rooms ahead of the holiday season.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday that B.C. is seeing a "dramatic increase" in cases of influenza A,a strain which can cause severe illness in children.

"I cannot stress enough the importance of influenza immunizationright now, this year in particular," said Henry, speaking to reporters in Vancouver.

"There are more children now who have not been exposed to influenzain the last two years ... so more of them are getting sick now."

Henry said the peak of flu season has arrived two weeks earlier than it usually would.

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Dr. Bonnie Henry says the highest risk group for children is typically six months to five years of age.

B.C. Children's Hospital has seen exceptionally long wait times as respiratory illnesses spread, with parents staying 12 hours or longer to have their children seen. Many children are also missing school, Henry said.

The hospital briefly called a code orangeat 6:35 a.m. PT on Saturday. The code can be used for mass casualty events, but a statement said it was used Saturday"to escalate notification for staffing resources."

The codewas cancelled that morning at 7:03 a.m.

Sarah Bell, the hospital's chief operating officer, said the emergency department is seeing high acuity on top of the sheer volume which meansa high number of patients requireprolonged attention andcare from nursing staff.

Bell saidparents should only bring children with a respiratory illness to the emergency room if they're having trouble breathing, adding that children who are younger than three months and have a fever andare dehydrated with diarrhea or vomiting should also go to the ER.

"You probably don't need emergency care if your child has a cough, cold, sore throat, the flu, pink eye or an earache," she said.

Henry said data showedthe illnessesbeing seen most commonly among children in B.C. in November wereinfluenza Aand, to a lesser degree, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections.

As of Monday, she said rates of the common cold and RSV havelevelled off while influenza A has become more common.

COVID-19 continues to affect older adults, she said.

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Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says there are tools other than a mask mandate to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses.

Dix said at the time the province had made plans to cancelnon-urgent surgeriesto create room at hospitals for patients, especially children, but had not yet reached that point.

"We do have other steps we don't want to take, but they would be, for example, delay of non-urgent surgery and then catching up on those quickly thereafter," Dix told reporters at the legislature.

"That step is available to us. We haven't done it yet. We knew this was going to be a hard season, and it is."