He's said it before, and unfortunately he is still saying it: COVID is not done with us yet.
That warning comes from University of Minnesota Infectious Disease Researcher Dr. Michael Osterholm, who says new variants that can evade the vaccine are emerging in Europe. He also says immunity among people who are vaccinated doesn't last forever.
“We’re not going to keep boosting people. They just won’t do it. So I’m concerned about the future of COVID and what’s going to happen. We just have to be honest with the public, we don’t know what’s going to happen but be prepared. We could have a tough fall just like Europe is beginning to have right now.”
Another wave of COVID-19 infections may have begun in Europe as cases begin to tick up across the region, the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday.
"Although we are not where we were one year ago, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over," WHO's Europe director, Hans Kluge, and ECDC's director, Andrea Ammon, said in a joint statement which echoes what Osterholm told WCCO.
Osterholm told WCCO's Chad Hartman that they've also been seeing an uptick in the number of young people dealing with so-called "long COVID," which not only impacts their daily lives, but is also impacting the workforce.
Also Wednesday, the U.S. authorized updated COVID-19 boosters for children as young as 5, seeking to expand protection ahead of an expected winter wave. Osterholm says he is not optimistic about
“Through the course of the pandemic, mostly during the past year with the Omicron variant and sub variants, there were 570 kids in this country that died of COVID,” Osterholm says. “That number is large, when you think about the number of deaths that occur in that age group is relatively rare, and surely exceeds the number of kids in automobile accidents and dying. So from that standpoint I think it’s really worthwhile to get the vaccine.”
Osterholm does say he concede it is still far more important for those over age 55, and particularly over 65 with preexisting health conditions.
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