Before everyone panics, however, I'm pretty sure this kind of statistic is self-reinforcing: if reports of flu are higher, and those reports are broadcast, people are more likely to go to the hospital when they exhibit flu symptoms, making the flu counts higher yet.
The media coverage of the swine flu might very well have set off this cycle.
Addendum: it isn't necessarily a bad thing - according to this hypothesis, if people who would have died of the flu this year are more likely to go to the hospital, and so less people should die. Or it might be that those who die of flu have reasons for not going to the hospital unaffected by media.