I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, we all rode it out at home and none of us were tested to see if we actually had the flu virus. We just assumed flu because what else could it be? At that point, we'd never heard of novel corona virus.
The illness we all got was characterized by a deep and persistent cough and chest congestion, brutal sore throat, and a fever with teeth chattering chills and soaking sweats. We all had various levels of relapses of the cough and chest congestion (generally without fever) after the initial recovery.
I stayed home from work, of course, when I was ill, but a few people I had contact with at work also came down with something similar right after me. Many had had the flu shot since we get it for free at work. The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. I've been wondering if it wasn't actually flu going around.