“All my grandbabies, all my daughters and their families have had all of this stuff. We just keep sharing it back and forth,” said Calgarian Ross Gilker about his experience with this year’s cold and flu season.
“It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
A persistent cough and congestion lingering for weeks are just some of the symptoms others told Global News they have experienced.
“My friends, several of them say they got sick over the holidays and it made their Christmas a little more quiet and at home,” said Rob MacDonald.
According to the Alberta government’s respiratory virus dashboard, cases of influenza, COVID and RSV in the province are all on the rise.
The latest numbers show between Dec. 22 and 28 there were 701 cases of the flu, 574 cases of respiratory syncytial visus (RSV) and 376 of COVID.
Mathieu Giroux, a pharmacist at Cambrian Pharmacy in Calgary, told Global News the number of cases seems to have spiked in the past two weeks.
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“The holidays really sped everything up,” added Giroux. “People probably went into it a little sick with viral infection but then they get a sinus infection or ear infection. So we’re treating a lot of antibiotics like for post-viral infections.
“Sometimes the cough can last for two to four weeks easily. And that’s where people have to go see the doctor get some puffers like an asthma puffer that you would get for short term coughing.”
Doctor Daniel Gregson, an Infectious Disease Physician at the University of Calgary, said the average adult can expect to get about two cases of the flu or other respiratory virus per year and the average child about 3 to 5 cases.
“There are various waves that occur over a period of months,” said Gregson. “Then we also have this background of Covid that’s been ongoing since the Covid epidemic and on top of that there are other viruses that occur at lower frequencies.”
“What has happened this year is the RSV spike, at least in Calgary, started a little bit earlier than usual and it has coincided with an onset of influenza,” added Gregson.
“There has been this cluster of viruses that are happening all together. It makes things worse.”
HR Consultant Wendy Giuffre, President of Wendy Ellen Inc., said one of the most important lessons we learned from the pandemic is people “do get sick and legitimately do need to stay home.”
“There are obviously some jobs that you can’t do from home,” said Giuffre. “But through the pandemic, I think most jobs that you’re able to do from home were set up that way, so there really is no excuse for people to have to come in to work when they’re sick.”
“There isn’t that — I don’t want to say mistrust — that there used to be, but there was a little bit of that stigma when you called in sick,” added Giuffre. “I think now that that is fundamentally changed”
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