The 2024-2025 respiratory season continues to see high rates of cases, with a total of 650 confirmed influenza cases in Waterloo region so far.
According to Waterloo Region Public Health's Integrated Respiratory Disease Surveillance Report and Annual Infectious Disease Surveillance Report, the 2024-2025 season has seen the highest number of recorded influenza cases to this point in the season since before the pandemic.
In 2025 alone, 525 cases of influenza have been recorded locally, the highest number in a decade.
The next highest year was 2022, with 507 recorded cases in the entire year.
The region's director of infectious diseases David Aoki said Cambridge residents should be taking precautions in order to slow the spread of respiratory illnesses like influenza or Covid-19.
“It is definitely circulating in numbers this year, so just making sure you’re being extra precautious and thinking of others when you’re out and about and making sure that you’re not spreading any illness and you’re taking care of yourself as well,” he said.
While this flu season may have seen higher numbers than recent years, Aoki said that isn’t necessarily cause for concern, as some fluctuation is to be expected.
“Every year’s a little different. Some years we have light years because there’s [a] good match with vaccines, or the conditions just don’t encourage spread," he said. "We have light winters, we have very heavy winters, like we’re having this year, which can … keep people indoors, keep people kind of congregated, which means the spread increases, because people are together."
"But this is what we see every year, the messages are the same, it’s not an overwhelming season but it’s certainly a year where we’re seeing a lot of transmission.”
Ellen Otterbein, RN, Infection Prevention and Control Practitioner at Cambridge Memorial Hospital, said that this year the hospital has seen more influenza than Covid-19 cases, a first since the pandemic began.
“It’s a significant flu season that’s probably comparable to flu seasons before the pandemic,” said Otterbein.
“I think maybe it’s been a while since we’ve seen an influenza season this significant, because during COVID it really sort of knocked all the other viruses off their feet and really took over the show for the number of years from 2020 through until even last year," when it was still the predominant circulating respiratory virus.
Aoki and Otterbein both highlighted a few key measures that residents can take in order to avoid getting sick, or passing that illness onto others. Flu vaccines, hand hygiene and staying home or wearing masks when sick are key ways to reduce the spread of infection.
“[The flu vaccine] is built … every year based on the strain that is circulating in the opposite hemisphere,” said Otterbein. “... So it is something that should be received every year, especially for people who are in high risk groups, high risk for complications. It’s available for everybody, and it’s not a bad idea for everybody to have it.”
Otterbein also recommended respiratory etiquette when out in public.
“If you have to cough or sneeze and you’re in a public place, covering that cough or sneeze with a sleeve or a Kleenex in your hand and then making sure your hand is clean after you get rid of the Kleenex.”
Flu shots are still available at health care providers, pharmacies and walk-in clinics across the city.