The U.S. has been hit drastically hard during the early flu season with a slew of reports regarding the sickness continuing to surface across the nation. The illness is said to be behind the hospitalization of 2,257 people and has tragically taken the lives of 18 children.

Health officials strongly believe that the flu hasn't even reached its peak in terms of potency yet, according to the Daily Mail.

"I think we're still accelerating," Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson Tom Skinner stated to reporters.

Recent cases from the CDC reveal that 29 states and New York City are experiencing extremely high levels of flu activity. Overall, reports have been made in 41 states.

"It's about five weeks ahead of the average flu season. We haven't seen such an early season since 2003 to 2004," Lyn Finelli of the surveillance and response team monitoring influenza for the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases stated.

During the 2003-2004 flu season, 3-year-old passed Emily Lastinger tragically passed away only five days after coming down with the sickness in late January. The respective time period was depicted as a "moderately severe" season for the flu.

"That was the first really bad season for children in a while. For whatever reason that's not well understood, it affected her and killed her," explained Emily's father Joe Lastinger.

Roughly 4 percent of users on Flu Near You, which is a real-time tracking system, state that they are expecting symptoms.

"That's huge. Last year. We never got near this," John Brownstein, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston told NBC News.

Brownstein is one of Flu Near You's founders, which has proven to be an effective tool for giving immediate data on the seemingly continuous flu season.

"It's what we call 'nowcasting.' It's more up-to-date view," he added.

An estimated 127 million doses of flu vaccine have now been mass distributed for this season.

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