Osterholm Quotes

"The challenge we have right now is this last mile and last inch. The last mile meaning getting the [COVID-19] vaccine out to the people who need it. Right now state and local health departments have no resources to do this, the private sector partners also are challenged, and so we've got to fix this last mile."

"I have said over and over again, if we don't swap air with others, meaning we don't put ourselves in harm's way to be in contact with others, we do that physical distancing, we stay at home - if we do that, that's the thing that will really drive [COVID-19] case numbers down."

"I wish every person could spend 30 minutes in the corner of an ICU. They would have a very different sense of reality. When people start dying in emergency rooms because they can't get a bed, maybe that's when Americans will get a different sense of reality."

"I shudder to imagine what things might be like in two weeks....Once you go over the [COVID-19] case cliff, where you have so many cases that you overwhelm the system, basically at that point when you fall off that case cliff, you’re going to see mortality rates go up substantially."

“It really is a situation where health care workers are the ultimate shock absorber for so many medical, [social], and economic issues. We are definitely outstripping the capacity of hospitals in terms of personnel…so what happens is that we ask health care workers who are already very, very stressed to take on even more.”

"What America has to understand is that we are about to enter COVID hell. It is happening....We have not even come close to the peak, and as such, our hospitals are now being overrun."

"We're now entering the darkest days of the pandemic. I just can't think of a more perfect way for this virus to transmit effectively through our communities. We've set up right now, virtually, a perfect storm."

"While it's unfortunate, I don't find it surprising that the [vaccine] timeline is being moved back....Clinical trials like this routinely have unexpected occurrences that delay planned timelines. It's just not unexpected."

"The challenge is, the end isn't coming soon. But it's coming, and what we need to do is try to have as few [COVID-19] cases as possible between now and the time a vaccine arrives."

"You know, this is our Covid year. Let's accept it. It's not like last year and it's not, hopefully, going to be like next year....So if you really love the people that you have in your immediate family...think through this. And actually do them the greatest gift of all and that is distance yourself this year and don't expose them."

"I don't believe that this infection really is being transmitted in waves. It's more like a coronavirus forest fire where in fact, it just burns, burns and burns. But then as soon as you let up the break, then it all comes back again."

"Public officials who know they have been exposed to the virus and should be in quarantine are either displaying blatant arrogance or numbing ignorance....The laws of virus transmission aren't different for public officials than they are for everyone else."

"This group [young adults] is going to continue to transmit a lot of virus....They are mobile, they have contact with those who are older, and we're going to see that spillover occur more and more as we get into the fall."

"Everyone had a fear there would be explosive outbreaks of [coronavirus] transmission in the schools. In colleges, there have been. We have to say that, to date, we have not seen those in the younger kids, and that is a really important observation."

"If a vaccine was developed that is 50 percent effective in preventing Covid, it would still be licensed. Of course, we'd like a higher degree of effectiveness, but as with the flu vaccine, 50 percent protection is better than zero. A Covid vaccine probably won't be nearly as effective as the childhood vaccines we're familiar with."

"We really have another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead of us [with COVID-19]. That's what I'm concerned about today. I don't go back and replay February and March. I play right now."

"We have to make sure the [COVID-19] vaccine is proven to work and ready for the public....If it is not ready and we cannot guarantee it works, the entire medical profession needs to stand up and say 'No, we are not going to do this right now.'"

"The public health community wants a safe and effective [COVID-19] vaccine as much as anybody could want it. But the data have to be clear and compelling."

"There is a pattern here that has occurred over a number of topics for both agencies [FDA and CDC] over the period of recent weeks that is making a lot of people in the public health community at state and local and federal levels doubt the scientific integrity of these agencies — which is the worst thing that we can have happen to us in terms of public health credibility."

"Everybody right now in the United States, whether you're talking about K through 12 or you're talking about Higher Ed, are all struggling with what to do with the numbers [of COVID-19 cases] that are occurring in the adolescents and young adults."