SO FAR, SO GOOD FOR VIRAL ILLNESS FLU CASES DOWN IN L.A. COUNTY.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

For the second consecutive year, Los Angeles appears to have escaped the worst of flu season without a major outbreak, officials say.

From late December through mid-January, doctors typically have patients lined up with coughs, fevers and telltale body aches. Holiday shopping and travel tend to create the perfect conditions for spreading the highly contagious influenza virus.

But this year, Los Angeles County had its first confirmed case of the flu on Dec. 3 and has only had three more cases since, said Dr. David Dassey, deputy medical director of acute communicable diseases for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

``We have no evidence of influenza in Los Angeles County right now,'' Dassey said. ``No one across the state is seeing much of anything.''

That's not to say more people haven't come down with the flu - many doctors simply don't run tests to diagnose the virus - but the low numbers are striking compared with previous years when doctors confirmed dozens of cases.

Between 10 to 20 percent of Americans will get the flu this year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Of those, about 114,000 people will have to be hospitalized, often the elderly, the very young or people with chronic health problems. < Local hospitals have seen few, if any, flu patients this winter.

``So far, so good on the flu,'' said Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman Lisa Kort.

But health officials aren't ready to celebrate yet. Last year Los Angeles made it through the winter before an outbreak in April that hit schools particularly hard.

``It's getting later and later in the year now,'' Kort said of peak flu outbreaks. As a result, Kaiser has started giving flu shots in November, rather than October.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services still has plenty of flu vaccine left, Dassey said.