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Flu Seaon Appears to be Mild This Winter

ATLANTA (AP/WMOT) — Health officials say the flu season is finally here, but so far few cases have been reported in Tennessee.

Until this month, there weren't enough cases in the U.S. to signal the start of the season. 

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta says this is the slowest start to the flu season in nearly 25 years. Flu season usually starts in December or January. Often, it's half over by this point in the year.

Here in Tennessee, the CDC is calling the incidence of flu "sporadic."

Dr. Eric Clark is the Medical Director at Middle Tennessee State Student Health. He says that it’s not only been a very lite flu season, but may be an unusually short one as well.

"As March starts getting here and warmer temperatures we start seeing less of it and we really suspect with this one that will be the case as well. I hope that it is. I mean, there are those rare times when things linger on past that, but the typicial, historical, features of this would be that it'll peter out in March."

CDC officials say only California is seeing a significant number of flu cases this year. So far the flu vaccine created for this season seems to be working well.