Osterholm Quotes

"Right now I don't see anything in the United States that supports that we're going to see a big surge of [COVID-19] cases over the summer."

"Over the next several months, we're about to see the public health system in this country systematically dismantled. I've never seen anything like this in my 48 years in the business — the amount of clawback that has happened with resources and funds. We're going to see major layoffs in public health agencies all across the country at federal, state and local levels. We're going to see research scaled back substantially on infectious diseases."

"I really am convinced we're on the backside of the pandemic. It's not done yet; however, I don't believe we're ever going to see another big surge, like we saw with the Delta, the Omicrons, and so forth. Keep in mind this is probably going to be like a flulike picture."

"There won't be a time I stop thinking about COVID. I have five grandkids, and as long as I think about them, I'm never going to retire, because I want to do what I can to make it a better world for them, and I think about that every day."

"I think that we in public health did see a major erosion of trust [during the COVID pandemic]. Part of it was, I think, we seriously lacked humility. We should have, as a public health profession, made it clear from the very beginning of the pandemic there are a lot of questions we can’t answer."

"It's [Omicron XBB.1.5's] still circulating out there. It's just acting more as a virus that is willing to live with us rather than try to kill us."

"Our center raised this issue four years ago the first time at the [Minnesota] legislature to say with what we're seeing happen here [chronic wasting disease], this could clearly lead to transmission to humans from consuming infected deer. And since that time four years ago, we've only seen this prion become more and more like one that we fully expect could transmit to humans."

[Turning new COVID-19 antibodies into approved drugs is] "going to take long-term investment. That is something we are missing.”

"We've got to be ready to pivot if we have to. I'm not going to say we're going to see another surge of Omicron-like illness, but we shouldn't be surprised."

“We have really lost so much health-care capacity in this country by loss of beds, loss of health-care workers [during the pandemic]. We better hope we’re not going to see a big surge in infectious disease cases of any kind in the months to years ahead."

"I think we're at a place right now where I can hope it will only get better. On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for this virus, and frankly, we all ought to have a lot of humility."

"We had concerns about a very good [COVID-19] vaccine, saving millions of lives, but not what we actually would have hoped we would have in terms of durability."

“We are at a very important time in this pandemic. I must remind people that we are still losing 250 to 280 people a day in this country from COVID."

Current COVID-19 vaccines are "really good, but they're not great. There is a substantial amount of work (to be done) to take these good vaccines and hopefully achieve better vaccines." 

"Everyone wants to get back to some level of normalcy, but these are healthcare institutions [dropping mask requirements]. But those masks didn't make much difference anyway. This virus is transmitted as an aerosol, so you have to have a very tight-fitting type of mask that filters out the virus, which is what an N95 [respirator] is. Hospitals only required a procedure mask."

"I don't think we should wait for a seasonal approach to this [COVID-19 vaccination] because this is not a seasonal disease yet."

"We have to address the challenges with health care. We have to realize that getting prepared for the next one [pandemic] means actually stockpiling vaccines and the kinds of things like N95 respirators. Well, we now have an administration that's tried to make that happen, but Congress has turned it down flat. If we had a pandemic emerge tomorrow, we would be in worse shape for that pandemic response than we were in 2019 and 2020."

“I do think that given the data that we’ve seen on waning immunity over time, that if somebody wanted to be vaccinated [against COVID-19] every six months and if they were in a high-risk group by age or underlying health condition, then I think that should be permitted. I don’t believe for a moment that it will be a widespread practice.”

"There are many cold criminal cases that never get solved, despite intense efforts to do so because they don't have sufficient evidence as to what happened. I think you have a very similar situation here [origin of SARS-CoV-2]. We're never really going to know." 

"When an agency [US Department of Energy] comes out and says they're leaning this way [China SARS-CoV-2 lab leak] but with 'low confidence?' I mean, how do you interpret that? The question is: 'Why did you even put it out there?'"