Cooler weather will likely bring a second coronavirus wave with it, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield warned.
Redfield told the Financial Times that the southern hemisphere, which is experiencing a large outbreak of the virus, is raising concern that fall and winter weather will bring the virus back to the U.S.
He said the U.S. needs to increase its disease-tracking methods quickly to avoid another large-scale outbreak that would also coincide with the seasonal flu.
“We’ve seen evidence that the concerns it would go south in the southern hemisphere like flu [are coming true], and you’re seeing what’s happening in Brazil now,” Dr. Redfield said. “And then when the southern hemisphere is over I suspect it will reground itself in the north.”
Whether a resurgence of the virus this winter will force the country to go back into lockdown mode, he said, remains to be seen.
“I can’t guarantee; that’s kind of getting into the opinion mode, we have to be data driven,” he said. “What I can say is that we are committed to using the time that we have now to get this nation as over-prepared as possible.”
He said the country was “unprepared for decades” for a pandemic like the coronavirus outbreak. He said there is no one in particular to blame for that.
To prevent a future public health disaster from happening, he said officials need to double or even triple investments to the U.S. public health system.