Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm warns that the United States is “at the start” of the fourth sudden increase in COVID-19.

A leading epidemiologist who advised President Joe Biden about the COVID-19 pandemic says it is time for Americans to accept that the country is beginning to show a fourth wave of coronavirus. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that, as far as the world is concerned, “we really are in category five hurricane status” and in the coming weeks we will see an increase in cases over around the world. And the reality will begin to become apparent to Americans soon. “In terms of the United States, we are just at the beginning of this increase,” said Osterholm at NBC’s Meet the press. “We haven’t even started to see that yet.”

Previous peaks followed a family pattern across the country and now it seems to be repeating itself. “I think we are in that cycle where the Upper Midwest is just beginning to start this fourth wave,” he said. When Michigan reported 8,400 new cases yesterday, “it was a wake-up call for everyone”, especially given the growing number of serious cases for people between 30 and 50 years old.

Osterholm criticized the way people in the United States seem to ignore the risks posed by the new, more infectious variants of the virus. This lack of concern is due, at least in part, to the way that leaders in the United States are not pressing to take the threat seriously. “We are the only country in the world that is currently experiencing this growing number of cases due to this variant and, at the same time, opening, not closing,” he said. Fox News Sunday. “The two are basically going to be in conflict and we’re going to see a substantially larger number of cases.” Osterholm acknowledged that it may not be what people want to hear, “but the main message of the virus is that it will do what it is going to do and we will have to respond in some way”. A particular concern, said Osterholm, is how the new variants make children much more vulnerable to infection. “Please understand, this variant B.1.1.7 is a brand new ball game,” he said. “In fact, right here in Minnesota, we are now seeing the other aspect of this B.1.1.7 variant that hasn’t been talked about much, which is that it infects children very quickly.”

Others, however, are more optimistic that a fourth wave can be avoided. Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said that while young people are causing a further increase in infections in some areas, that does not mean that there will be a fourth wave due to the increase in vaccination. “You have something like 200 million Americans who already have some level of immunity,” he told CBS ‘ Face the Nation. “I think there is enough immunity in the population so that you don’t see a real fourth wave of infection.”