4 things to know about Biden's proposed COVID-19 Advisory Board
3. Dr. Michael Osterholm seconds Biden’s prediction of a ‘very dark winter’
Dr. Michael Osterholm, another member of Biden’s proposed COVID-19 Advisory Board, was a guest on Fox Business Tuesday and echoed Biden’s prediction of a “very dark winter,” a phrase the former vice president first used during the second presidential debate.
“The next 12 to 14 weeks are likely to be the darkest period in this entire pandemic,” Osterholm warned. He urged the American people to “take this thing very seriously.”
Citing “pandemic fatigue” and “pandemic anger,” along with the colder months leading to people spending more time indoors, Osterholm projected that “we could easily see the cases go far north of the 125,000 we’re reporting this past week.” “It would not surprise me if by the time we get to the holidays, we could be reporting over 200,000 cases a day.”
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Osterholm cited small Asian countries as a model for how the U.S. should deal with the pandemic. “People basically complied with government orders initially to limit their contact with others and to basically shelter at home until they got the numbers driven down,” he said.
When asked by host Maria Bartiromo if more than 200,000 coronavirus cases a day would lead to another economic shutdown, Osterholm took issue with what he saw as the “distinction between the economy versus COVID health,” contending that “they’re one in the same.”
After arguing that “the economy is going to suffer miserably” unless coronavirus is brought under control, he recalled an op-ed he wrote in The New York Times advocating for another lockdown in early August.
