US has ‘another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead’, top disease expert warns

WASHINGTON - Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned on Sunday of a potential Covid-19 spike and a bleak future in the US, citing a lack of a national plan to prevent further spread of the virus.

Osterholm made the comments when asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd to explain previous remarks from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who said people in the US should expect to “hunker down” in the upcoming fall and winter months.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last week during a panel discussion with Harvard Medical School. “We know

every time we lift restrictions, we get a blip. It’s whack-a- mole.”

“I do think we will likely get a vaccine by the end of the year, beginning of 2021,” Fauci continued. “And I think that’s going to be the thing that turns it around. I just think we need to hunker down.”

Osterholm said he and Fauci were “on the same page,” pointing to the roughly 40, 000 new cases of the novel coronavirus that are diagnosed each day.

According to a Sunday tally from Johns Hopkins University, there have so far been at least 6, 492, 744 cases of the novel coronavirus in the US, resulting in more than 190, 000 deaths.

“We will, with the colleges and universities open, with the spillover that’s occurring with people experiencing even more pandemic fatigue, wanting to be in indoor air spaces with other people,” he said. “As we get into the fall, we’re going to see these numbers grow substantially,” he said.