Ontario to students: get H1N1 flu shot

Even though some of the indicators of H1N1 activity have declined over the past couple of weeks, King said the rates of influenza are still higher than at the peak of a regular flu season, and influenza activity is still very high in the province. She said the virus will likely be around for some time into the future, and emphasized the vaccine is safe, and a match for the virus.

So far, only 3.8 million Ontario residents have received the H1N1 flu shot. Whether Ontario will see a third wave of H1N1 depends on how many people get immunized, officials say.
“I would suspect we will get little blips in activity in different communities and in different settings,” said King. “But whether that blip is large enough to say we have a wave in the entire province will be fully dependent on how many people we get immunized.”

Ontario has had 97 lab-confirmed deaths and 1,541 hospitalizations due to H1N1 since April. On Friday, there were 223 people in hospital, with 55 of them in the intensive care unit and 39 on mechanical ventilators. Ontario has received almost 5.9 million doses of vaccine. Next week, it will get more than one million doses, and could get an additional one million doses beyond that.

-The Canadian Press