COVID-19 expert: Coronavirus will rage ‘until it infects everybody it possibly can’
A high-profile infectious disease researcher warns COVID-19 is in the early stages of attacking the world, which makes it difficult to relax stay-at-home orders without putting most Americans at risk.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the initial wave of outbreaks in cities such as New York City, where one in five people have been infected, represent a fraction of the illness and death yet to come.
“This damn virus is going to keep going until it infects everybody it possibly can,” Osterholm said Monday during a meeting with the USA TODAY Editorial Board. “It surely won’t slow down until it hits 60 to 70%” of the population, the number that would create herd immunity and halt the spread of the virus.
Even if new cases begin to fade this summer, it might be an indicator that the new coronavirus is following a seasonal pattern similar to the flu.
During the 1918 flu pandemic that sickened one-third of the world’s population, New York City and Chicago were hit hard in the first wave of illness that largely bypassed other cities such as Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis and Philadelphia. The second wave of illness was much more severe nationwide.
Fauci warns against ‘prematurely’ opening U.S. states in coronavirus pandemic
WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Leading U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Tuesday warned Congress that a premature opening of the nation’s economy could lead to additional outbreaks of the deadly coronavirus.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases warned a U.S. Senate panel that states should follow health experts’ recommendations to wait for signs including a declining number of new infections before reopening.
President Donald Trump has been encouraging states to end a weeks-long shuttering of major components of their economies.
“If some areas, cities, states or what have you jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks,” Fauci said. “The consequences could be really serious.”
Fauci, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that the nation’s efforts to battle the deadly virus and the COVID-19 disease it triggers should be “focused on the proven public health practices of containment and mitigation.”