The intensity of this year's flu season has made it the worst since the swine flu pandemic of 2009-2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"This has been a really difficult season and it's not over yet," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Anne Schuchat told NBC News. "I think the end of this season will end up being a bigger toll of disease than during that 2009 pandemic."
The CDC says the influenza is still at elevated levels in every state except Montana, Maine and Florida and some 114 children have died from it this season.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that illness reports appear to have peaked and only 5 percent of those who visited their doctors complained of flu-like symptoms compared to 6.4 percent the previous week.
"We have definitely peaked," said CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund told CNN, adding "that doesn't mean we aren't going to see more flu activity."
"There's still high activity and many more weeks of flu season to go," she said.
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