In an interview with PBS Newshour, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, speaks about the months ahead.
Osterholm: “Well, we actually have a convergence of factors that are making for what is, I think, going to be the darkest part of the pandemic over the course of the next 12 weeks.
First of all, pandemic fatigue, as was described in this report, is happening. Many people who believed that — in April and May that they had to take steps to keep from getting infected and did, and didn’t get infected, thought, well, you know, we have kind of dodged this bullet, have now, by Labor Day, become to the point of where, this — I’m done with the virus, even though the virus is not done with them.
Then we have a growing segment of the population that I characterize as having pandemic anger. They don’t believe that the pandemic is real. They think it’s a hoax. They think it’s politically motivated.
