America's monster flu season: By the numbers

The flu has hit early and hard in what is shaping up to be the worst nationwide outbreak in more than a decade

A doctor examines a Chicago-area patient experiencing flu-like symptoms on Jan. 10.
(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The frighteningly early and rapid spread of the flu across the U.S. this winter has been "pretty much unparalleled," as John Hick, an emergency physician in Minnesota, put it. Indeed, Boston — the epicenter of an outbreak in Massachusetts — declared a public health emergency this week. Many hospitals say they're overwhelmed with patients showing flu symptoms, and clinics across the country are running out of vaccine. And people might not take the flu as seriously as they should. Gregory Poland, professor of medicine and infectious disease at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., tells USA Today that "we have this cultural thing in the U.S. about, 'Oh, it's just the flu.'" But the wave of illness could be quite deadly, and damage the economy, says Northwood University economist Timothy G. Nash, "if this is a major influenza outbreak, like the Spanish flu of 1918." Just how bad is this flu season? Here, a look, by the numbers:

3,000

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.