Fmr. CDC Head Sounds Alarm on ‘Dangerous’ Covid Spikes: ‘Not Seeing the Appropriate Response’ from Political Leaders

Coronavirus cases continue to spike across the country, with the number of daily cases hitting another record high Tuesday, along with record high hospitalizations and over a million new cases being reported since the start of November alone.

Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told Chuck Todd that the encouraging news from Pfizer about a vaccine breakthrough should “give people a glimmer of hope,” but cautioned against “false hope” and complacency.

“This is a very dangerous situation and we’re not seeing the appropriate response from our political leadership,” Besser said. “As we’ve been saying for months and months and months, respiratory viruses thrive in the winter… This is the time of year where viruses do really well. It’s also hitting us at a time where people are really tired of doing the things that have been shown to work.”

He touted new CDC guidance touting mask-wearing and knocked political leaders across the country aren’t stepping up to push for mask use, while giving credit to the Republican governor of Utah for announcing a mask mandate.

“If we don’t come together as a nation and get the politics out of this and have every single state mandating masks, we’re not going to get on top of this,” Besser said. “Every state is seeing rises. What you should be seeing is our political leaders modeling the behavior we need to see.”

He also said that Congress needs to get its act together and help out struggling Americans still dealing with the consequences of the pandemic and lockdowns.

You can watch above, via MSNBC.