Infectious Disease Expert Warns Coronavirus Next Growth Will Affect Younger People

Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm warns Americans not to give up security, even as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to decline.

“Let me say that we are in the eye of the hurricane right now,” Osterholm told the Meet the Press on Sunday. “It simply came to our notice then. We can even see the blue sky. ”

But, Osterholm said that B.1.1.7, more infectious. the UK variant is growing below the surface. Responsible for just 1 to 4 percent of cases in the U.S. a month ago, the variant has now grown to 30 to 40 percent of cases.

“And we have seen in Europe when we reach this 50% mark, you will see an increase in cases,” said Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm also said that the new variant is spreading even among younger populations – just as schools in many areas are reopening – and referred to an outbreak in high school sports in his home state of Minnesota last week.

“We will have some hard days in front of the older population and the younger population with this new variant of the virus,” he said.

Osterholm praised the country’s pace of vaccination efforts, but warned that the figures so far and the expected vaccine supply in the coming weeks “will not really solve the problem at all”.

“We still have a lot of high-risk people there,” he said. “When this growth occurs, they will be extremely vulnerable.”

See the full discussion in the clip above.