It might be time to bust out the Chrome books and tablets and clear off the kitchen table as more schools are transitioning to remote learning due to the recent spike in COVID-19 cases from the omicron variant.
As for what we could expect over the next few weeks, Dr. Michael Osterholm joined News Talk 830 WCCO's Vineeta Sawkar to give his thoughts and predictions for the pandemic.
"We have to understand we have a new reality with this omicron variant as a part of the COVID pandemic," Osterholm said.
Osterholm shared that we all want and need to have kids in school and acknowledged how difficult it has been over the past two years.
Still, with the recent increase in cases due to the transmissibility of the variant, Osterholm doesn't think the issue is going to be about whether or not we want kids in school.
"We all want kids in school," Osterholm said. "[The issue is] going to be about 'Do you have enough teachers, staff, bus drivers, etc. to even hold school?'"
The doctor shared that the Twin Cities will see a surge in cases just like the West Coast is experiencing now within the next three to four weeks.
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Even with people just wanting the pandemic to end, Osterholm says we are only at the end of the beginning.
"In this situation, we all want the pandemic to end right now, and it will. It's going to end as something that is an immediate everyday crisis," Osterholm said.
The doctor said that when we get out of this current omicron surge, we will go back to our everyday lives, and things will start opening up again.
CDC director Rochell Walensky had shared last Friday that this could happen sooner rather than later, with this current surge being considered an "ice pick," not a "wave," meaning new cases will fall just as fast as they went up.
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But even if we have a drop, Osterholm says that new variants will continue to develop, which means we will need long-term plans to control the virus.
"What can we do with vaccines? What can we do with drugs?" Osterholm asked. "I think one of the things that is going to be a very important step going forward is we are going to have therapeutic drugs, where, if taken early into the infection, [the drug] can do a lot to reduce serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths again."
When it comes to what he thinks will happen to COVID-19, Osterholm compared it to HIV, which was a "death sentence" in the 1980s and is now a "chronic illness."
As for the state of the pandemic right now, Osterholm described what most hospitals and medical centers are dealing with, saying, "you do not want to show up in a hospital right now."
The doctor discussed the use of COVID-positive workers in some hospitals on the East Coast, expressing that "we have nobody else left to help."
"You do not want to get infected right now, do everything you can not to," the doctor said.
