In an interview today with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease, Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, emphasized to listeners that the U.S. is indeed in the middle of a “viral blizzard” that will last for the next three to five weeks. As the number of Covid cases soars, it will be necessary to be flexible, he said—know what the situation is around you, and be prepared “to pivot.”
Of the many points he raised, one was the question of whether another variant will show up that can evade the immune protection we now have from current vaccines or from having been infected and recovered from Covid. ‘We can’t answer that right now, but we can’t forget it,” he said. He warned that there will be many more Covid cases among healthcare and hospital workers, but added that the good news is, that many of these won’t be that serious. The reality is that “we’re in a viral blizzard and everything begins to shut down.” In the healthcare area, a concern is that “we won’t be able to deliver good care, because 10-20% of workers are out (or will be out) sick.” There is a shortage of medical supplies, and even pharmacies are having problems, because they don’t have the staff available to fill prescriptions. So, “the viral blizzard will shut down a lot of services that we count on.”
