Osterholm Quotes

"People all assumed we would see major [COVID-19] transmission [this winter]. Well, every time we think we have some reason to believe we know what it's going to do, it doesn't do that,"

“I’m getting more [COVID-19] intelligence from China right now, by far, from news reporters on the ground, or from private sector companies [than from the government]."

“I don’t think we have a real sense of what variants to be concerned about and which not to be."

"People are trying to figure out 'Well, how do we adjust to this virus [SARS-CoV-2]?' We could make this decision today to go with a once-a-year vaccine. But what happens if a new variant emerges in July and suddenly has major changes for the world?"

 The poultry industry likely cannot “sustain itself in countries like the U.S. if we continue to see annual surges" of H5N1 avian flu.

“We are watching this antibiotic era turn into a post-antibiotic era,” regarding a newly identified strain of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea in the United States. "That is a scary proposition.”

“The bivalent vaccine is working as well as we could have expected. The challenge we have is, what does that mean going forward?”

“Every day, I hear from people who are misinformed by their physicians or call-in nurse lines. Generally, they’re being told you can’t get Paxlovid until you’re seriously ill—which is just the opposite of what’s recommended. Why are we not doing more to educate the medical community?”

“None of us yet really understand how to interpret the scientific information that continues to come in on variants and subvariants and try to translate that into meaningful public health policy—or for that matter, how to even talk about it. I think we’re in a place right now where we’re trying to understand: How do we talk about this [in a way] that’s meaningful to people and that has public health consequence?”

"This [COVID-19] is still a very substantial public health problem. And you can declare whatever you want because you want to move on. But don't confuse the fact that the virus doesn't care what your policy statements are."

“I think this [monkeypox] will be an ongoing chronic problem with sexual transmission, but it won’t be an explosive problem.”

“[The updated COVID-19 vaccine boosters] still provide a level of immunity that may not prevent you from getting infected but may have a significant impact on whether or not you become seriously ill and die. I mean, right now, the most recent data we have shows that for those who have the bivalent vaccine, they have a three-fold lower risk of dying than those who don’t.”

"What we're seeing in China poses a really significant challenge for transmission. This virus is every bit as infectious now there, as measles virus, which is considered one of the most infectious viruses on the face of the earth. We've surely seen that this virus can change. It can do more... very damaging things over time."

“What’s happened with the COVID vaccines is they’ve become much more like the flu vaccine, where you do need these booster doses with some regularity. In this case with the flu, obviously, we do it annually, and with COVID, it could get to the point where it’s every six months or so.”

"This pandemic is just going to blow through (China) in the next weeks. It's unfortunate they didn't think about this six or 10 months ago. They could have bought themselves time to be in a better position."

"We're seeing an unusual increase," with deaths from COVID-19 up 71% over the last three weeks and related hospital and intensive care unit bed usage up 22%. "The bottom line is this is not done."

"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.”