Canada’s flu season likely peaked over the holidays, the Public Health Agency of Canada said on January 9, 2026, with test positivity falling to 27.1 per cent from a three-season high of 33.3 per cent. Cases remain high, however, and hospitals across the country are still under strain from the H3N2 wave.
The worst is likely over, officials say
The latest national influenza data, released Friday and covering the week of December 28 to January 3, shows indicators of flu activity “stable or decreased,” according to the Canadian Press. The share of tests coming back positive dropped to 27.1 per cent, down from 33.3 per cent in the week ending December 27 — the highest positivity rate recorded in three seasons, above the previous peak of 27.6 per cent in 2024-25. Laboratories reported 13,471 detections from nearly 50,000 tests in the latest week, and both confirmed outbreaks and weekly hospitalizations were trending downward.
“We’re still in the heavy, middle part of the influenza season, but it is a relief to see the per cent positivity start to come down, which means we’ve gone through the worst,” said Dr. Eleni Galanis, director general of PHAC’s Centre for Emerging and Respiratory Infections.
Officials were careful not to declare the season finished. Holiday gatherings fuelled transmission in late December, and cases that remain “high but stable or decreased” still translate into busy emergency departments through January.
An H3N2 season that started early
This season arrived early and was driven almost entirely by influenza A, specifically the H3N2 subtype and a drifted variant of it known as subclade K. H3N2 seasons are typically the most severe, particularly for older adults, and federal surveillance shows people over 65 and children under four account for the largest shares of flu hospitalizations.
The variant’s timing also blunted the main line of defence. The strains for this season’s flu shot were selected in February 2025, months before subclade K emerged over the summer, leaving the vaccine a poorer match for the circulating virus. Health officials stress the shot still offers meaningful protection against severe illness and hospitalization, and continue to urge vaccination, hand hygiene and staying home while sick.
Hospitals still feeling the strain
Even past the peak, the pressure on hospitals has not lifted everywhere. Earlier this week, doctors in Edmonton called on Alberta to declare a state of emergency as hospitals overflowed with respiratory patients. Widespread flu activity has been reported in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Prince Edward Island.
The season’s human cost was felt most sharply in Ottawa, where public health officials reported that three children between the ages of five and nine died of influenza A complications in December. The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario was flooded with young patients — it recorded more than 300 positive flu tests in ten days in December, compared with just 11 in the same period a year earlier — and appealed to family doctors and paediatricians to extend their hours.
PHAC’s message heading into the rest of January is one of cautious relief: the curve has turned, but with more than a quarter of flu tests still positive, the season’s heavy middle stretch is not over yet.
