Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned Sunday that the U.S. is on the brink of a fourth coronavirus outbreak.
Why it matters: Data show that the US may be at the start of a fourth wave that will boost the growth of new variants, which are likely to be less susceptible to existing vaccines. A fourth surge would almost certainly be less fatal than the previous three, thanks to the widespread vaccination of the elderly.
Send the news: The director of Disease Control and Prevention Centers, Rochelle Walensky, put herself to the test during an information session last week and made an emotional plea to Americans not to abandon public health measures amid fears of a fourth wave not.
- “I’m going to think about the recurring feeling of an impending doom,” Walensky said, apparently holding back tears.
- “We do not have the luxury of idleness. For the health of our country, we must work closely together to prevent a fourth upsurge.”
What he says: “We are now, I think in that cycle where the Middle East is just starting this fourth boom. And I think it was a wake-up call to everyone yesterday when Michigan reported 8,400 new cases,” Osterholm said. Sunday.
- “And we are now seeing an increasing number of serious illnesses, ICUs and hospitalizations, in individuals between the ages of 30 and 50 who have not yet been vaccinated.”
- “We are just at the beginning of this boom. We have not even really started to see it yet,” he said.
But, but, but: “I think with the rate of vaccination we currently have … I think there’s enough immunity in the population that you are not going to see a real fourth wave of infection,” said Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner. , said Sunday’s “Face the Nation.”
Go deeper: The fourth wave is here