B.C.'s provincial health officer is encouraging people to get immunized with updated influenza and COVID-19 vaccines as the 2024 respiratory illness season is already underway. 

More than 369,000 flu and COVID-19 shots were administered in the first week of the campaign, Dr. Bonnie Henry said during an update on B.C.'s respiratory illness season in Victoria on Tuesday (Oct. 22). It was 228,000 influenza doses and 141,000 for COVID-19.

That's about 4,000 more doses administered than in the 2023 vaccination kickoff. 

The public vaccination campaign kicked off Oct. 15 after invitations for the public to be immunized began on Oct. 8, 2024.

Henry said the province is already seeing increases in COVID-19 infections and other viruses. She said the province haa ordered 2.2 million doses of the updated COVID-19 vaccines and 2.3 million doses of the new influenza vaccine.

She said B.C. is seeing "sporadic activity of influenza and RSV so far this year," which is "going back to what we consider a more normal pattern from before the pandemic." She said she expects to see influenza and RSV cases increase around late-November, early into December.