RSV, flu surge beyond pre pandemic numbers in Nunavut amid health care staff crunch – GLOBAL

December 15, 2022

Nunavut health officials say there has been a surge of respiratory illnesses across the territory this year.

Dr. Sean Watchel, the territory’s chief public health officer, says cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, along with the flu and COVID-19 have increased dramatically.

“That’s reflected across the country, that increase from opening up after the pandemic restrictions,” he said during a press conference Thursday.

Nunavut lifted all COVID-19 public health restrictions in April.

Before the pandemic, in 2018-19, there were 142 cases of RSV in Nunavut. That dropped to 58 cases in 2019-20 and just two in 2020-21.

Watchel said there have been 493 RSV infections and 86 hospitalizations so far this year.

COVID-19 infections are also in the rise in the territory. Watchel said there were 269 cases and four hospitalizations in 2020, 598 cases and nine hospitalizations in 2021, and 3,155 known infections and 84 hospitalizations in 2022.

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/9352660/rsv-flu-covid-surge-nunavut/