A top epidemiologist who has advised President Joe Biden on the COVID-19 pandemic says it’s time Americans accept that the country is starting to enter a fourth surge of the 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 a category five hurricane status” and the next few weeks will see a surge in cases around the world. And the reality will start to become evident to Americans soon. “In terms of the United States, we’re just at the beginning of this surge,” Osterholm said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We haven’t even really begun to see it yet.”
Previous surges have followed a familiar pattern across the country and that now appears to be repeating. “We’re now I think in that cycle where the Upper Midwest is just now beginning to start this fourth surge,” he said. When Michigan reported 8,400 new cases yesterday “it was a wake up call to everyone,” particularly because of the rising number of severe cases for people who are between 30 and 50.
