(GuelphToday is counting down its top 10 stories of 2018 from Dec. 22 to Dec. 31)
Layna Vu Pollard, 12, was a student at Westminster Woods Public School who loved dancing and hanging out with friends.
Vu Pollard developed flu symptoms on Jan. 29. Two days later she was found unconscious on the floor of her family's home. Her father performed CPR and she was rushed to Guelph General Hospital but died of the influenza B virus.
“We were expecting 30 to 40 people at her visitation but or 400 came,” Layna’s father Stu told GuelphToday.
A second, unidentified, elementary school student also passed away of the flu shortly after Vu Pollard, although the Wellington Dufferin Guelph Health Unit said the two were not related.
Public Health extended flu clinics, with a weekend clinic attracting hundreds of parents bringing young children to get them immunized.
