CDC Director Warns: ‘Worst Fall We’ve Ever Had’ is Coming

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CDC Director Robert Redfield warned Thursday that Americans are facing the “worst” fall ever “from a public health perspective” if the coronavirus pandemic isn’t adequately suppressed.

“For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against COVID, I’m asking you to do four simple things. Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds,” he said in a Thursday interview with WebMD’s chief medical officer, Dr. John Whyte. “But if we don’t do that, as I said last April, this could be the worst fall from a public health perspective we’ve ever had.”

A total of 1,499 Americans died as a result of Covid-19 on Thursday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, the most in a single day since the month of May. More than 5.2 million Americans have had confirmed cases of the virus this year, while 166,000 have died as a result of complications stemming from it.

Redfield and other health officials warned in April that the virus could percolate until a widespread “second wave” in the fall, which would coincide with the start of the flu season. While infections surged over the summer, experts have still suggested the winter could be bleak.

“I think November, December, January, February are going to be tough months in this country without a vaccine,” Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said this month.

On the bright side, Redfield said, mortality rates were improving for two reasons. “One is we’re recognizing more infections, so the denominator is different. But also we really are getting better as physicians and managing these patients. Good recognition of the hypercoagulable state. The importance of anticoagulation. The recognition that steroids has a role in advanced disease. The earlier ability to use remdesivir.

“So the mortality, I think, continues to decline,” Redfield said.