Surging flu cases across Canada, especially among children, causing growing concern for health-care capacity

Q: What are doctors seeing on the ground, compared to what we’re seeing in the data?

“There’s usually a tipping point where there’s enough spread in the community that it’s hitting people who are more high risk, and you see the influx coming into hospital. So there’s a little time lag,” Saxinger explained.

Official data is always a snapshot of the past, and doesn’t always keep up with the rapid expansion of flu activity in the community. What’s happening in hospitals right now, Saxinger said, is that more patients are now coming in with severe influenza and its complications.

“What I was seeing a lot last week was secondary infections, so like a bacterial pneumonia or sepsis on top of influenza,” she said.

The flood of patients was fast and furious this year, and in Saxinger’s hospital in Alberta, she said the wards are “full and overflowing,” leading to hallway beds and a “miserable experience” for both the patients and staff.

“It really was a very sharp uptick this year in terms of going from leading indicators [to cases] going up to now… it seemed like it was a pretty brief time period.”