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A leading infectious disease expert predicted on Sunday that the deadliest British variant of Covid-19 would become the dominant strain of the virus in the United States and could strike the country like a hurricane.
The ominous forecast came as total confirmed infections in the United States surpassed 26m, with the death toll rising steadily towards the grim half-million mark after Sunday surpassing the total of 440,000, by far the highest in the world according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center.
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who served on Joe Biden’s transitional coronavirus advisory board following the Democratic victory in the 2020 election, and is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned America to prepare for the spread of the virus. force this spring.
“The surge that’s likely to happen with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks,” Osterholm told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday morning.
He urged the new administration to act faster with plans to vaccinate as many people as possible in the United States, at least with their first dose, especially those over the age of 65, in an attempt to to avoid the worst exacerbation by options of an attack.
“This hurricane is coming,” Osterholm told NBC.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that the new British variant could be 30% more deadly than the original virus.
The strain was first identified in the United States in late December, but it is believed to have been present there already as early as October.
Osterholm has indicated that if leaders across the United States cannot stay ahead of the more contagious and virulent British strain, disaster looms in the form of a new and rapid outbreak of infections, into an uncontrollable pandemic since it came to the United States over a year ago.
“If we see that happening… we’re going to see something like we haven’t seen in this country yet… I see this Category 5 hurricane, 450 miles offshore,” Osterholm told NBC.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that to date, nearly 50 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed and approximately 30 million of those administered to patients, out of a US population exceeding 320 millions.
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