Infectious disease expert warns next coronavirus peak will also affect younger people

Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm warns Americans not to lower their vigilance even as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to decline.

“Let me say we are in the eye of the hurricane right now,” Osterholm said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “It looks like things are going very well. We even see blue skies. ”

But, Osterholm said, the more contagious B.1.1.7. variant from the UK rises below the surface. Responsible for only 1 to 4 percent of cases in the US a month ago, the variant has now grown to 30 to 40 percent of cases.

“And we’ve seen in Europe that when we hit that 50 percent, you’re going to see the number of cases increase,” said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm also said the new variant was spreading even among younger populations – just as schools in many areas are reopening – referring to an outbreak of high school sports in his home state of Minnesota last week.

“We will face some difficult days in the older population and in the younger population with this new virus variant,” he said.

Osterholm praised the pace of the country’s vaccination efforts, but warned that the numbers so far and the expected supply of vaccines in the coming weeks “will not solve the problem at all”.

“We still have a lot of people at high risk,” he said. “When this wave comes, they will be very vulnerable.”

See the full discussion in the clip above.