Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of former Vice President Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, predicted on Thursday that hospitals will be “collapsing in the next two to three weeks” due to spikes in coronavirus cases across the country.
As many push the President Donald Trump administration to provide information regarding coronavirus cases to the Biden transition team, Osterholm emphasized the importance of someone in his position knowing “current information on the number of cases.”
“[F]or individuals such as myself, we’re not having those discussions, which is limiting us in terms of the information that we learn, the information that we share,” Osterholm told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think right now we all have to understand that we need current information on the number of cases. I think that the White House task force report issued yesterday or at least was made public yesterday is right on the mark. We are really in a crisis stage. We have to be discussing what can we do, what do we do. You know, it’s not just enough to help Americans understand you don’t want to swap air — how do you incentivize them, how do you help them realize that this what they want to do.”
“We need somebody to say this is what’s happening, this is how bad it is,” he advised. “We’re going to see hospitals collapsing in the next two to three weeks. And this is what we’ve got to do to address that. And just remember one thing, for the next three weeks the cases are already in pipeline. The people who are infected this morning will be the cases of next week in the hospital, a few days after that, and will be in the intensive care rooms and dying after that. So even if we did everything we could right now, we would still not turn this thing around for literally three to four more weeks.”
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