Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned on Sunday that the United States is on the verge of a fourth wave of coronavirus.
Why does it matter: The data shows that the United States may be at the beginning of a fourth wave that would promote the growth of new variants, which are likely to be less susceptible to existing vaccines. A fourth wave would almost certainly be less deadly than the previous three, thanks to the widespread vaccination of the elderly.
Driving the news: The director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, left the script at a news conference last week and made an emotional plea to Americans not to slow public health measures amid fears of a fourth wave.
- “I will reflect on the recurring feeling that I have of impending doom,” said Walensky, seeming to contain his tears.
- “We cannot afford to inaction. For the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth outbreak.”
What is he saying: “We are now, I think in that cycle where the upper Midwest is starting to start this fourth wave. And I think it was a wake-up call for everyone yesterday, when Michigan reported 8,400 new cases,” said Osterholm in Domigo.
- “And now we are seeing an increasing number of serious illnesses, ICUs and hospitalizations, in individuals between 30 and 50 years of age who have not been vaccinated.”
- “We are just at the beginning of this increase. We haven’t even started to see it yet,” he said.
But, but, but: “I think with the vaccination rate that we’re getting now … I think there is enough immunity in the population that you don’t see a real fourth wave of infection,” Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, said on Sunday “Face the Nation “.
Go deeper: The fourth wave is here