Flu Season Off to Slow Start, So Far/ US News

From US News and World Report:

Relatively few cases reported, experts say, but that doesn't mean a surge can't happen...

One barometer of flu activity, the percentage of visits to hospitals or doctors' offices linked to influenza, also suggests a mild season so far. For example, just 1.4 percent of outpatient visits during the week ending Jan. 7 were for flu, the CDC said, compared to a seasonal average (over the past three years) of 2.4 percent. And just one in every 200,000 people had flu so severe that it required hospitalization, the CDC added.

The best news of all may come from statistics regarding children, who are particularly vulnerable to the flu. According to the CDC, no children in the United States have died from the flu so far, compared to the four pediatric flu-linked deaths that had already been reported by Jan. 1, 2011...