Officials with the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance are preparing for this year’s flu season.

CEO Lori Marshall says once again, the province has chipped in over $300,000 to have five additional beds available in the event of an outbreak.

“We do anticipate higher volumes of people presenting to emergency departments and potentially requiring admission in this time period,” says Marshall. “So what this allows us to do is open those beds up staff those beds and respond when that happens.”

In terms of prevention, Marshall is encouraging everyone to get a flu shot, make they’re practicing good hand hygiene, and coughing into their sleeves to help reduce the spread of the virus.