Flu cases across Canada reached a three-year high over the holidays but have since stabilized or decreased heading into the new year, new figures released Friday showed.
The latest national influenza data accounts for the holiday period of Dec. 14 to Jan. 3.
During the week of Christmas, Health Canada said the percentage of positive tests for influenza reached 33.3 per cent, “the highest value recorded in the past three seasons.”
The following week, the rate of tests coming back positive for flu decreased to just over 27 per cent.
Health Canada said the most recent week of data that ended Jan. 3 showed “indicators of influenza activity were high but were either stable or decreasing.”
It said the highly infectious and deadly H3N2 strain was “predominant” among influenza A cases detected in laboratory samples.
Cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) have risen since the last update on Dec. 19, with 3.4 per cent of tests returning positive, while COVID-19 cases also rose to 5.3 per cent positive tests.
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“Indicators of RSV activity continue to increase slowly and some indicators of COVID-19 activity increased,” Health Canada said.
Hospitalizations for all flu strains have remained stable since the last update on Dec. 19, with 12.4 patients per 100,000 of the population reported per week.
There were 343 reported outbreaks across the country in the most recent week of data, Health Canada said, 72 per cent of which were related to influenza. The number marked the second week-over-week decline from a peak of 457 outbreaks reported during the week ending Dec. 20.
Thirteen regions in five provinces — Alberta, Prince Edward Island, southern Ontario and Quebec, and British Columbia’s Lower Mainland — saw “widespread” influenza activity during the most recent reporting period.
The dominant strain being observed in Canada and the United States is the influenza A(H3N2) strain, including a subvariant — A(H3N2) subclade K — the World Health Organization said.
In Ottawa, three children between the ages of five and nine have died from influenza A-related complications, with the city’s health officials urging anyone over the age of six months to get vaccinated.
In November, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario saw eight times more children test positive for influenza compared with the same month last year and double the number of children who needed to be hospitalized with the flu.
“The flu is more than a bad cold,” the hospital, colloquially known as CHEO, said in a statement.
“Children under five are at a higher risk of severe illness from influenza because they have smaller airways, and their immune systems are still developing. Even healthy kids can become seriously ill, and flu spreads quickly in schools and child-care settings.”
—With files from Global’s Uday Rana
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
