Dr. Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus advisor to President-elect Joe Biden, said that a 4-6 week lockdown that shut down businesses and compensated workers for lost wages may curb the spread of the virus and get the economy on track until a vaccine is approved and distributed.
Osterholm, the director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told Yahoo Finance Wednesday that the strategy would help decrease daily case counts and hospitalizations until an effective vaccine arrives.
“We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers, for losses to small companies, to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments,” Osterholm said. “If we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks.” (RELATED: Sweden Imposes Partial Lockdown For First Time)
Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm on what Americans should expect from the coronavirus pandemic in the next few months:
“We are about to enter COVID hell.” https://t.co/7XaewjE0ry
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) November 10, 2020
Earlier this week, Osterholm said that the United States is heading towards “Covid hell,” and said that people’s growing unwillingness to wear masks and socially distance was due to “pandemic fatigue,” according to CNBC.
In addition to Osterholm, Biden’s 12-member coronavirus advisory board includes Dr. Rick Bright, a vaccine expert and whistleblower who was fired from the Trump administration in April, and is led by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general under President Barack Obama.
The United States confirmed a record-high 143,000 cases yesterday, marking the ninth consecutive day with over 100,000 cases. Over 10.4 million Americans have been infected with the virus, and over 241,000 Americans have died, according to a Johns Hopkins University database.
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