Despite the recent downturn in national virus cases, Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House COVID-19 response team, said on Monday that the B.1.1.7 variant is likely to fuel the next wave of business growth as the country with vaccinations continues.
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“Unfortunately, we can not predict the future, and we know that this virus since our arrival has been nothing but full of surprises, and I think there will be more surprises,” Slavitt told MSNBC. ‘But I do not think we are close [to] out of the woods. I do not expect that we will just sail smoothly from here, ‘he added in part.
Slavitt’s comments follow a warning from Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in which he claims the next 14 weeks will be the worst in the pandemic.
Slavitt and Osterholm centered their projections around the variety strain first detected in the UK, 1,173 total cases now reported in 40 states in the US, and its impact on the US in the coming weeks. The comments come after new findings from the UK government, which conclude that it is “likely that infection” with the B.1.1.7 variant “is associated with an increased risk of hospitalization and death compared to other viruses .
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Based on various databases across the UK, scientists have said that the variant is probably 30 to 70% more deadly than the original strain. They had earlier concluded that the variant was believed to be up to 70% more transmissible, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeting last month that it “could also be associated with a higher rate of deaths.”
“The next 14 weeks I think will be the worst of the pandemic,” Osterholm told CBS ‘This Morning’ on Monday. “People do not want to hear it, but if we look at what these variants are doing, especially those from the UK, and look at what they did in Europe, look at what they did in the Middle East, it’s starting here now. “In the US, we’re going to see it unfold.”
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Following the guidance recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on School reopening, Osterholm predicted ‘major efforts’ to open some schools, but a rapid increase in cases fueled by the variant will next six to eight close quickly. weeks.
More than 14 million people in the US received two doses, and at least 52.9 million doses were administered, per data collected by the CDC. More than 27.6 million people in the U.S. are infected, with at least 485,000 lives lost to the new disease, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Fox News’ Alexandria Hein and David Aaro contributed to this report.