What does it feel like to be working in an emergency department during this nasty flu season? Every day feels like Monday.

Monday is usually the busiest day of the week in the ER. “Now instead of having a Monday peak,” said Dr. Bill Frohna, who runs the emergency department at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., “it’s seven days a week of a Monday.”

Though it is still too soon to say whether this is a historically bad flu season or just a bad flu season, one thing is clear: Emergency rooms around the country are filled with a feverish throng that is much larger than last year. Washington Hospital Center had just 20 patients test positive for flu all of last year’s season. This season, as of Monday, there were already 179 cases positive for flu.