Infectious Disease Researcher: A Covid Viral Blizzard Is Headed For America, Millions Will Be Infected With Omicron. In this photo, commuters wear protective face masks as they walk through a subway station, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Dec. 1, 2021, amid the covid-19 pandemic. Brazil joined the widening circle of countries to report cases of the omicron variant. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
With covid-19 infections sharply on the rise due to the omicron variant, one infectious disease researcher has predicted a “viral blizzard” is going to hit millions in America.
“We’re really just about to experience a viral blizzard,” Michael Osterholm told CNN on Thursday, Dec. 16. “In the next three to eight weeks, we’re going to see millions of Americans are going to be infected with this virus, and that will be overlaid on top of delta, and we’re not yet sure exactly how that’s going to work out.”
Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Covid cases and hospitalizations were up 40 percent over the last month, according to a separate CNN report.
The omicron variant of covid has been identified in at least 40 U.S. states just 17 days after the first case was detected in the country.
This comes a little more than two weeks after the U.S. stock market took a major hit and the U.S. banned flights from South Africa, whose health experts first discovered the omicron variant.
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However, just because South African scientists were the first to detect omicron doesn’t mean it originated there – and global cases have continued to surge.
Another infectious disease expert, Singapore-based doctor Leong Hoe, offered similar predictions in early December stating, “Omicron will dominate and overwhelm the whole world in three to six months.”
Osterholm and others say they are afraid the omicron surge will overwhelm hospitals during the winter and cause a setback in the pandemic recovery.
“What you have here right now is a potential perfect storm,” Osterholm said. “I’ve been very concerned about the fact that we could easily see a quarter or a third of our health care workers quickly becoming cases themselves.”
CNN host Michael Smerconish expressed a belief that many others have shared – that covid-19 is here to stay.
“Covid it seems has taken another turn for the worse and for me it’s starting to feel like the new normal – as in its here to stay and will remain so for our lifetimes. And while we need to take every possible step to protect ourselves and contain the virus, we also need to prepare ourselves psychologically so that we can live as normal an existence as possible amidst a pandemic that’s becoming endemic.”
