Michael Osterholm: ‘We Have Every Reason to Believe’ There Will Be Another Covid Surge

EXCERPT:

OSTERHOLM: “And the viruses fall into basically three categories: they are the much more infectious, meaning they transmit more, or they cause more severe illness, or they can in some cases even defeat the antibody protection of the vaccines or natural infection. There is one now that is circulating in the United States and growing very quickly in numbers called B.1.1.7, as you noticed, it originated in the U.K.. This is a virus that's anywhere from 40% to 60% more infectious and is one that causes more serious illness. The European countries have been dramatically hit by this. Many of them are still in lockdown and have been for up to two months. And what happened in each of those countries was when the percentage of the B.1.1.7 went past 50% of all the viruses being found, there was major surges in cases. We’re about at that point right now in this country where we expect in the next two to three weeks to see B.1.1.7 become the predominant strain. We have every reason to believe what happened in Europe will happen here."