Osterholm said the Americans were not being realistic about this new peak, which he said was being driven by a variant of Covid.
“We are the only country in the world right now experiencing this growing number of cases due to this variant and, at the same time, opening, not closing,” he told presenter Chris Wallace. “The two will basically conflict and we will see a substantially larger number of cases.”
He said he realized that his message was not what people wanted to hear now.
“I understand the absolute resistance in this country even to consider that and you know – it’s like trying to drink barbed wire – but the final message of the virus is that it will do what it will do, and we will have to respond in some way”, said Osterholm, adding that it may involve stepping back “from some of the restrictions we have loosened”.
The biggest recent increase in cases has occurred in the Upper Midwest. “If I think someone in Michigan thought they would see 8,400 new cases on Saturday as they did, no one would have believed it a month ago,” said Osterholm.
Osterholm noted that the new variant hit children more strongly than previous strains of the virus. “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 the fact that it infects children very quickly,” he told the program “Meet the press.”
The United States had more than 30 million cases of Covid and more than 554,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Osterholm added: “Nobody wants to be the person who will die three days before receiving Covid’s injection.”