Credit: Office of the Governor, YouTube
After weeks of infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm warning Americans of the “darkest days” of the pandemic yet to come, Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota Department of Education announced new Wednesdays guidelines that encourage schools to retrieve as many students as possible. the classroom for face-to-face instruction.
Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Research Policy at the University of Minnesota, who was a member of President Joe Biden’s coronavirus advisory group prior to his inauguration, has been sounding the alarm about what he believes it will be a significant increase in the disease in the next 14 weeks.
Appearance on Monday in Osterholm CBS This morning focused almost entirely on the threat of B.1.1.7. variant that caused strict blockades in the UK.
“The next 14 weeks I think will be the worst of the pandemic. People don’t want to hear that,” Osterholm said. “But if we look at what these variants do, particularly this one in the UK, and see what it did in Europe, we see what it does in the Middle East, now it’s starting to start here in the United States. We’ll see it develop.”
Osterholm expects “very dark days” in late March, even predicting that schools that currently bring children back for in-person instruction will have difficulty staying in person when the climb arrives.
“I have a lot of respect for Dr. Osterholm and he’s been a huge component that helps us understand,” Walz began when asked about Osterholm’s predictions. “That’s not the CDC’s position. It’s not the models we’re using, IMHE, Mayo … we’re not necessarily seeing it. It’s not wrong for variants to pose a potential threat.”
Walz said Minnesota’s figures right now don’t justify keeping schools in distance learning mode, and while he admitted that “we’re not out of the woods yet,” the situation in the state is now such that “we” are in a position to make this move that mitigates the risk to the nearest zero we can achieve. “
On Monday there were less than 54,000 cases and 989 deaths nationwide, the lowest total since October and November, respectively. In Minnesota, the numbers have remained at much lower levels than during the October-November rise which meant that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 exceeded 1,800.
The peak in Minnesota during the fall put great pressure on the state’s hospital capacity, forcing some patients to be moved to hospitals across the state due to the limited supply of open beds and staff available to treat them. patients.
The Minnesota Department of Health also cared about the variants
“We are concerned that we may see that variant B117 (the UK variant) is becoming more frequent or even dominant in Minnesota and that this may lead to an increase in cases. That is why we are closely monitoring the situation through our laboratory. and epidemiological work, ”an MDH spokesman told BMTN on Tuesday.
“However, we have two weapons against this threat: our continued use of preventive measures such as wearing masks and physical distancing and the continued deployment of vaccines. It is so important that each of us use these tools to make our part in keeping the virus, regardless of the strain, is controlled. “
Osterholm is not the only one who thinks the virus will increase in the coming weeks.
“We’re now on a break as cases go down. These new variants are more contagious,” said Dr. David Agus, a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. CBS This morning on Tuesday. “We are going to increase the number of cases over the next few weeks for these variants and it is certainly frightening the suffering they could cause.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, also said that B.1.1.7. the variant could become the dominant strain in America in late March.