‘Worst to come’: When flu season is set to peak

Flu cases tripled last month, but a doctor says the “worst is yet to come”. See when cases are expected to peak and the current hotspot suburbs.

Victoria has recorded more than 18,000 influenza cases this year after reports tripled last month, but a Melbourne doctor has warned the “worst is yet to come”.

Local general practitioner and National Asthma Council Australia spokesman Dr Joel Ten said there had “certainly” been an uptick in recent weeks of both influenza and Covid.

National data shows Victoria had recorded between 1690 and 2218 cases of the flu every month this year, until May, when cases tripled and reached more than 6700.

A further 3600 were reported in the first two weeks of June alone and children aged five to nine were the demographic most likely to be sick.

Dr Ten said he expected influenza patient numbers to peak next month, instead of August or September.

“We are on track for an early peak,” he said.

“This year we’ve actually been seeing more cases earlier on.

“Unfortunately, probably the worst is yet to come.”

He pointed out the numbers, while high, significantly underestimated the spread as the majority of people did not get a PCR test for cold and flu symptoms, so were never counted.

He said while influenza cases were not putting excessive pressure on hospital beds yet, it was “certainly putting a strain on our system” and had a “flow on” effect to emergency departments.

“But I think so far, our hospital admissions and intensive care units seem to be under control for now,” he said.

He said RSV and Covid were also increasing and having a bigger impact on the hospital system.

“In the hospital setting, we’re seeing a lot of Covid and RSV,” he said.

He said Covid was responsible for more than half of respiratory illnesses while influenza and RSV made up about 15 per cent each.

“There’s just so many respiratory bugs around,” he said.

Dr Joel Ten said the best way to protect yourself was to get a flu vaccine, and uptake has been low this year.

The latest Covid data from the health department shows increasing levels of the virus in the state’s wastewater, and a daily average of 368 hospital patients, down from last week’s 412.

Dr Ten said asthmatics in particular were at a higher risk from respiratory illnesses — already suffering inflammation in their airways — and encouraged them to make sure they had an asthma action plan in place.

“Between 60 and 70 per cent of flare ups of asthma are actually caused by viral infections,” he said.

“If you have not very well controlled asthma . . . and then you get the virus coming in, that causes even more inflammation and that will have a compounding effect.”

He said the flu vaccination was the best method of prevention, followed by good hand hygiene and encouraged at-risk people, such as asthmatics, to consider wearing a mask in crowded places.

“The number of vaccinations are actually surprisingly low at the moment,” he said.

“Make sure that you stand the best chance to fight off whatever is going to come your way.”

Influenza hot spots include Melbourne’s outer southeastern suburbs, with victorian health department data recording 1671 cases in Casey, the highest of any local government area.

It was still home to the biggest spread when adjusted for population size while Cardinia and Warrnambool, which had 468 and 145 cases respectively, finished out the top three once figures were adjusted for population size.

Originally published as ‘Worst to come’: When flu season is set to peak