A leading expert on infectious diseases predicted on Sunday that the deadly British variant of Covid-19 would become the dominant strain of the virus in the US and could hit the country like a hurricane.
The alarming prediction came when the total number of confirmed infections in the US reached the 26 m mark, with the death toll rising steadily towards the gloomy milestone of half a million after surpassing the total of 440 000 on Sunday. , by far the highest in the world according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus research center.
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who served on Joe Biden’s Transitional Coronavirus Advisory Board after the Democratic victory in the 2020 election, and is director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, has warned the United States of the spread of to support the virulent sift this spring.
“The boom that is likely to take place with this new variant from England will take place in the next six to 14 weeks,” Osterholm told the NBC program Meet the Press on Sunday morning.
He called on the new government to move faster with plans to vaccinate as many people in the US as possible, at least with their first dose, especially those over 65, to exacerbate the worst by the variants of the ongoing attempts to fend off. crisis.
“The hurricane is coming,” Osterholm told NBC.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that the new British variant could be 30% more deadly than the original virus.
The strain was first identified in the US at the end of December, but it is presumably already there in October.
Osterholm has indicated that if leaders across the US can not keep up with the more contagious and more virulent tensions in the UK, a disaster in the form of a new and rapid rise of infections, in a pandemic out of control, could subside. since it was the US more than a year ago.
“If we see this happening … we’re going to see something like we’ve never seen before in this country … I’ve seeing Hurricane Category 5, 450 miles from abroad,” Osterholm told NBC.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that to date, nearly 50 million vaccine doses have been distributed, and approximately 30 million of those administered to patients are among a U.S. population of more than 320 meters.