The COVID-19 cases are spreading, with some experts predicting we’ll soon be back up to more than 200,000 cases a day—a rate we never thought we’d see again since so many people are vaccinated. The problem? So many aren’t. So how can you keep yourself and any innocent children safe? Michael Osterholm, the Center for Infectious Disease, research, and Policy at the University of Minnesota, appeared on Meet the Press to warn about this “very, very bad” Delta variant.
Read on for six life-saving pieces of advice—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Sure Signs You Have “Long” COVID and May Not Even Know It. A doctor examining a female patient in critical health conditions using a stethoscope in the intensive care unit of a modern hospital during covid-19 pandemic Osterholm said what’s happening is “actually a series of different events going on. First, you have the Sunbelt states, which we all know have dramatic case increases. If you look at the state of Louisiana right now, they’re tied with the country of Georgia for the highest rate of infections in the world.
But what we’re seeing happen right now is while those states are starting to level off of bit potentially, we’re now seeing in the Southeast—Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Southern Illinois—all start to take off. We see in the Northwest states like Oregon and Washington; we even see increases in the Midwest. So this increase that we’re seeing in the Southern Sunbelt states, which has been dramatic, is at 83,000 hospitalizations today; a month ago, we were at 25,000. So it gives you a sense of what’s happened just in the last month.” He predicted the surge could last “another four to six weeks.”
Brunette woman wearing a KN95 FPP2 mask.
Should you wear a mask? If so, which kind? “At this point, we need to put everything we can towards controlling” the outbreak, and “one of the things, of course, is masks,” but he says you need “N95 masks or the K95 for kids. Masking is essential right now. Remember, while vaccination is still the number one, two, and three weapons we have, if even everyone got vaccinated today, the surge would continue as it is right now for the next four to six weeks because these people would not yet have immunity. So what they can do today, though, is a mask.” How can you tell if your mask is working?
Let’s put it this way,” said Osterholm. “If you were in a room with someone smoking, would you smell the smoke? That is an aerosol, and you know how they travel. You’ve walked down the street wherever you suddenly get the whiff of smoke, and you see somebody 20 feet before you. And so that’s the test we have now. A cloth mask can give you some protection, but it’s not the kind of protection you have when using a much more compelling show. We have not talked about that early enough.
