Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, talks to Meet the Press about the Covid-19 delta variant and what it takes for people to stay safe now.» Subscribe to NBC News: http://nbcnews.to/SubscribeToNBC
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Full Osterholm: ‘The Surge Could Sustain Itself For Another 4 to 6 Weeks’
welcome back children have become the new battle line in the coveted pandemic with cases among children still low but rising seven states all right now with republican governors are now banning mass mandates in schools some parents are cheering those bands while others are suing entities to prevent those bans at the same time the cdc is now recommending a third dose of the pfizer or modern vaccine for some people with weakened immune systems nationwide this highly transmissible delta variant has cases rising in all 50 states with only half the us fully vaccinated the seven day average of new u.s cases is now up to 129 000 that is the highest since early february which is exactly the same thing i said last week it’s that the numbers higher again joining me now is dr michael ostrow he’s the director for center for infectious disease research and policy at the university of minnesota um michael i would say it’s always good to have you on but but i have i have a feeling this is a very dire outlook that you have so let me just start with that sir how how much longer is this surge going to last uh i guess this is the fourth wave since we began this conversation well when you look inside this wave it’s actually a series of different events going on first of all we have the southern sun belt states that we all know are basically at really dramatic case increases if you look at the state of louisiana right now they’re tied with the country of georgia for the highest rate of infections in the world but what we’re seeing happen right now is while those states are starting to potentially level off a bit we’re now seeing in the southeast georgia south carolina north carolina kentucky tennessee southern illinois all start to take off we’re seeing in the northwest in states like oregon and washington we’re even seen in the midwest increases so even if this increase that we’re seeing in the southern sun belt states which has been dramatic we’re at 83 000 hospitalizations today a month ago we were at about 25 000. so it gives you a sense of what’s happened just in the last month and if these other states take off then i think the surge could sustain itself for at least another four to six weeks given what we saw happening in india as the delta variant basically you know came from there it now looks like the cdc’s mass guidance back in may was a big mistake do you concur at this point we need to put everything we can towards the controlling this virus and one of the things of course is mass but i want to qualify that by saying and i think this has been a difficult message for many it’s the nuance message it’s what kind of mask you’re using you know i would tell you if the old car you have has a seat belt in it and that’s it use it but if you can get a modern car that has a seat belt harness a collapsible body frame airbags a computer system to reduce your speed with an impending crash and shard glass you don’t get cut use that and we’ve not paid any attention really to giving the public the message that you need much more effective masking such as the n95 mask that we talk about or the k in 95 for kids so yes i think masking is very important right now remember while vaccination is still the number one two and three weapons we have uh if even everyone got vaccinated today this surge would go on as it is right now for the next four to six weeks because these people would not yet have immunity so what they can do today though is mask but get effective mass and that’s really important so are you saying i’m going to hold up my mask here that i wore this morning this one here which is just a you know a decent cloth mask that many of us buy on amazon uh not good well let’s put it this way uh if you were in a room with someone who was smoking would you smell that smoke that is an aerosol that’s and you know how they travel you’ve walked down the street where you suddenly you get the whiff of smoke and you see somebody 20 feet in front of you and so that’s the test we have now a cloth mask surely can give you some protection but it’s not the kind of protection that you get when you use a much more effective mass we have not talked about that nearly enough the other thing chuck we’ve been doing a study looking at the public use of mass we find routinely 20 to 25 percent of the population will continue to wear the mask under their nose that’s nothing more than a diaper chin for your chin and so i think that what we want to do is inform people yes mask but most importantly give them the information about how they can get the more effective effective mass and how they can use them there’s a lot of people um right now when it comes to kids and the virus that think back to the guidance last year when it was pretty clear that even if kids got the virus they weren’t serious outcomes that is it a changing with delta we’re seeing more children in hospitals pediatric hospitals are are starting to get overwhelmed is this just that’s the largest group of unvaccinated americans and that’s why it’s there or do we need to rethink our virus guidance for kids under 12. well i do believe we need to rethink it i’ve been promoting that for some time the data we have used to come up with recommendations for opening our schools is really exactly as you pointed out from pre-alpha the previous variant as well as now delta and this is a different virus in the sense that it’s much more infectious now remember we still have 90 million americans in this country that could be vaccinated that are not and that alone serves as a source for infecting our kids who as you know under age 12 cannot be vaccinated yet and so we do need to do more and i would also point out the other thing that helps you understand the infectiousness of this virus is the fact that we’re now seeing more and more events with outdoor air you know you know months ago we were saying if you’re outdoors you’re pretty safe we have had a number of events happening uh where in fact people crowded together outdoors get infected now if that’s happening outdoors imagine what happens to our kids when they’re closely together in schools so i think that it is important that we recognize then as you’ve seen in the first week of school in the south we’ve had a number of outbreaks of cases and so yeah that we do have to at this point recognize this delta is basically a very very bad virus in terms of transmission dr michael osterholm uh projecting that we may have another four to six weeks at a minimum of this current surge uh michael like i said it’s good to see you but uh i wish as always we’re under better circumstances thank you hey thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today’s top stories and breaking news by downloading the nbc news app you
