Father taking care of his daughter ill with flu at home

In a year where Americans could use all the breaks they can get, some will find comfort in the fact that the flu season is off to a slow start. But, of course, in 2020 there just has to be a catch.

Seasonal flu activity across the United States was lower than usual through mid-November, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report. The CDC comes to this conclusion after analyzing several metrics. For one, flu activity was low this past summer and few specimens examined in public health labs over the last few weeks have tested positive for the flu. Also, just 1.5 percent of visits made to health care providers were for influenza-like illness in the last week of reporting, which is the same rate as the week before.

The CDC is suggesting the public take results of flu surveillance with a grain of salt because the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could be making the influenza-like illness surveillance metrics a little misleading. 

Healthcare experts can only go off of the information they got, though. And right now, the numbers shows that there's been no pediatric deaths related to the flu this season and just two states have greater than what the CDC defines as "minimal flu activity." Even those states, Indiana and New Mexico, only have "low" flu activity.