Flu season is surging
Covid numbers are down: Quebec only noted four Covid deaths over the last week, while influenza is surging. I’ve had a box with Covid numbers in the sidebar since numbers were made available in 2020, but I’m taking it down this week, hoping it won’t be needed again (but I’m saving the code, in case).
Still might be time for a mask. Anecdotally, a friend who’d had a flu shot caught flu last week and has been quite ill, so maybe keeping the face wrapped would be good policy on transit and so on for now.
EmilyG 11:39 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
I still wear a mask on transit and in stores and other public places.
Blork 11:43 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
I still wear a mask on transit if it’s even remotely crowded. It didn’t stop me from getting clobbered by the flu the first week of January (although I don’t think I got it on transit). That was my first illness since my previous flu, which was two months before the pandemic started.
H. John 12:05 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
“Covid numbers are down” and yet they remain 12.5X higher compared to the lowest point in the COVID pandemic. In 2025, so far, 120 Quebeckers have died of COVID (provincial numbers no longer include people who died with COVID).
“Still might be time for a mask” a wise consideration given the flu numbers, and the fact that the current estimates of COVID infections remain at 81,000 – 125,000 new infections per week in Quebec.
jeather 12:17 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
I am not sure I had ever been more sick in my life as when I finally got Covid last month — except when I got an actual influenza about 15 years ago. (I am fully Covid vaccinated — I believe I have had 7 shots — and started getting flu shots shortly after that fun time and get them yearly.)
I know it’s mild because I never felt even close to needing to go to a hospital, but that packed a fucking wallop. Honestly don’t even know people who were as sick as I was from it. I appear to be fully recovered, though I guess I will see how things go for long Covid symptoms.
Kate 12:30 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
Oof. I was being blasé after the recent dip in deaths reported by Santé Québec.
Thank you both for your info and experience.
Chris 12:57 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
I see something like 1 mask per day out there. Apparently they are all readers of this blog!
Alex L 13:01 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
This flu wave is a harsh one. My kids have been sick with high fever, rashes and cough for almost a week now, as half their groups at daycare.
MarcG 17:17 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
Here’s an article that may provide some food for thought. https://thesicktimes.org/2025/01/30/the-pandemic-of-abandonment-navigating-friendships-five-years-into-covid-19/
JP 20:38 on 2025-02-12 Permalink
I saw a show at Place des Arts on Saturday afternoon. I have never been in an audience with that much coughing, sneezing, and sniffling. It was coming from all sections of the audience, all around us, next to us, behind us, in front of us….luckily we were on the top most balcony and with no one directly beside me or my friend but a good proportion of that audience was sick.
CE 00:25 on 2025-02-13 Permalink
“The Sick Times” that sure sounds like a nice, uplifting read.
MarcG 08:32 on 2025-02-13 Permalink
TIL that everything must be nice and uplifting.