Why Nova Scotia is now tracking respiratory syncytial virus deaths

A provincial dashboard tracking caseloads, hospitalizations and deaths from respiratory illnesses shows 17 deaths from respiratory syncytial virus this season after omitting that data in previous years — so why is the detail now included?

The highly contagious seasonal infection, known as RSV, often hits infants and seniors the hardest, which can lead to bronchiolitis and pneumonia.

Last fall, the Nova Scotia government started an immunization program for infants under eight months old and people over the age of 75.

“With those two programs, we wanted to track RSV more closely to get a sense of what the impact of the immunization programs were going to be, and that would mean we would be looking at some of the severe outcomes from the disease,” said Dr. Jesse Kancir, Nova Scotia’s deputy chief medical officer of health.

By severe outcomes, he means things such as hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and deaths.

“We had a good sense before about some of [what] the caseload was in the province, but not the outcomes,” said Kancir.

While officials can’t compare the number of deaths this season to past years, Kancir said they can make some observations about the success of the RSV immunization program.

“There’s good data for us showing that the respiratory season last year was easier than years that we’ve seen before … if we think that COVID and flu are an indication of what has happened with RSV, that 17 is actually a better year,” he said.

The 17 RSV deaths have all been in people older than 65, said Kancir.

For the current respiratory season, which runs roughly from August 2025 to August 2026, there have been 72 deaths from the flu and 70 from COVID-19.

Last year, the number of deaths for both illnesses was about twice as high: 136 for the flu and 123 for COVID-19.

With the flu particularly, there was fear last year that it was going to be a bad season, both due to the severity of the strain and a potential mismatch with the available vaccine.

Kancir said that while there was “a bit of an intense spike” in the early part of the winter, there was much less of it afterwards.

He said it’s too early to talk about the upcoming respiratory season, but is encouraging people to wash their hands, not touch their faces, stay home when they’re ill and get vaccinated for the various respiratory illnesses.

“Part of getting vaccinated is also protecting others around you, right?” said Kancir. “And so you might be the reason that someone around you does not get it. You might be protecting that infant in your life or that grandparent in your life.”

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