iN NUMBERS: Flu season in Kamloops worse than Okanagan

Have you ever gotten the flu or a cold and thought you should report it to your local health authority? Probably not.

You can usually tell how the flu season is going based on how sick your friends, family and neighbours are getting, especially if your kids are bringing a new virus home from school every week.

It’s tough to get a full picture of how the flu season is going based on data, but here are some of the facts and figures we have to work with.

This flu season in Kamloops and the Okanagan by the numbers:

4: Strains of the flu virus this year’s vaccine guards against.
1: Flu shot needed for an adult to be protected each season.
42: The average percentage of people who get the flu shot.
26.5: The percentage of people who got the flu shot in the Interior Health region.
107,728: Cases of the flu reported in Canada since August 2024.
2: Health regions in B.C. that have the most flu in the country, Fraser and Vancouver Coastal.
124: New flu outbreaks the week of March 15.
4.1: Hospitalizations from the flu per 100,000 people.
17: The peak influenza wastewater viral load per capita in Kamloops, which is a complicated way of saying how much flu virus was found in the wastewater.
6: The peak influenza wastewater viral load per capita in Kelowna.
8: The peak influenza wastewater viral load per capita in Penticton.
64: The peak SARS, or COVID virus, wastewater load per capita in Kamloops this season.
50: The peak COVID virus, wastewater load per capita in Kelowna this season.
46: The peak COVID wastewater load per capita in Penticton this season.