Osterholm Quotes

"I think China is going to blow in the next six to 12 weeks. Instead of falling off a 5-foot cliff, we're going to watch them fall off a 1,000-foot cliff."

"I don’t think anything looks good for China right now. Its 1.4 billion people are at increased risk of contracting this virus for the first time, and these first infections surely pose the risk of serious disease, including hospitalizations and deaths.”

“The [COVID-19] virus is still in the driver’s seat."

“[China is] seeing the same number of cases [the U.S. is] every day, and from that standpoint, it’s not a major public health challenge. The problem is…they have assigned this lockdown mentality where 300 cases in a community of 20 million people get locked down. That’s not going to stop it. It won’t work.”

"I am a faithful N95 [respirator] user and I fit it appropriately to the face and not below my nose. And I think that's what we're talking about. A lot of these [mask-wearing] recommendations are so generic that the public has no idea what you're talking about."

“We’ve learned in the past that when you have a seasonal virus circulating, it may dampen the ability of other viral respiratory pathogens to take off," on why non-COVID respiratory viruses all but disappeared in 2020 and 2021.

“If we see that [Omicron subvariant] deaths are reduced and if serious illness and hospitalizations are reduced, even if people do get infected, that’s still a big success."

“Right now, we don’t have a lot of people that feel the pandemic is that big of a problem."

"In the past, what's happened in Europe [COVID-19 cases] often has been a harbinger of what's about to happen in the United States. So I think the bottom line message for us here in this country is we have to be prepared for what they are beginning to see in Europe."

"The Southern Hemisphere data for their 2022 does not support they had a bad flu season despite what the media has stated."

“At this point we need to vaccinate as if [new COVID-19 variants] will not provide a new and critical challenge around immune evasion. But we owe it to the public to say we could be seeing a future aspect of this pandemic unlike any we’ve seen today.”

"Only about 4.4% of the US population that's eligible to receive the [new bivalent COVID-19] booster has gotten it. I've gotten mine. I urge everyone else to get it, because while it's not maybe perfect protection, it surely is some good protection for now. But at the same time, I'm watching very carefully kind of sleeping with one eye open to see what these new sub-variants that are highly immune evasive look like."

"The challenge is, we don't understand yet what this virus still has in store for us. If you've got subvariants that can evade immune protection from previous infections and you've got waning immunity—that could set us up for a whole new set of circumstances."

“This is not the same [SARS-CoV-2] virus we dealt with back in January of 2020. It’s evolved every time we put pressure on it. We get more immunity in people, and it finds a way to get around immunity. Then it gets more infectious.”

“We’re now trying to treat [COVID] like a seasonal influenza and it’s just not yet.”

“We have so little experience with coronaviruses and how they play out. We’re kind of in limbo land right now.”

"Eradication is a very sacred word in public health; to eradicate means it is gone permanently, and the only virus we have done that with so far is smallpox."

"Is it hard to get people vaccinated when people are saying it's [COVID's] all over with? Absolutely. I wish that [President Joe Biden's statement] hadn't happened."

“We’ve had two million [COVID-19] cases reported over the last 28 days, and we know underreporting is substantial. [COVID] continues to be the No. 4 cause of death in the country.”

"Protection from the flu virus vaccine wears off over time, as much as 18% per month. So if we were to see the flu season emerge in January and February, those vaccinated in September may only have a limited amount of protection left. If possible, we really like to see people getting a flu shot in October or early November if there is no flu activity in the community."