Is Another COVID Lockdown Coming In The US?

Is another COVID-19 lockdown coming in the U.S.? It appears possible. An infectious disease expert advising President-elect Joe Biden said a weeks-long nation-wide lockdown could be employed to handle the pandemic.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said an economic relief package could accompany a national shutdown.

“We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers," he told Yahoo! Finance. “If we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks.”

Johns Hopkins University reported 136,325 new cases of COVD-19 as of Wednesday and 1,415 deaths associated with the infection. Speaking to CNN on Monday, Osterholm said he expects something of an exponential rise in new cases this winter.

"It will not surprise me if in the next weeks we see over 200,000 new cases a day," he said.

In the Midwest, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said that with new cases topping 6,000 in recent days, she was considering her next steps. Speaking to the Detroit News on Tuesday, she revealed she was “having ongoing regular conversations” with state health officials about how to address the “very serious” spike in new cases in the state.

In a state-wide address Wednesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said if the curve doesn’t flatten, officials would have no choice but to close down bars, restaurants, and fitness centers to control the outbreak.

Tolerance for renewed lockdowns is not a national phenomenon, however. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, said controlling the outbreak was a personal responsibility.

And the pandemic is highly political. An Associated Press survey of vote tallies for 376 counties with the largest spikes in COVID-19 cases across the country found that more than 90% went for President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the situation.

The warnings followed an announcement from Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech that its vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19. The companies are pushing for emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though a vaccine would not be readily available until the first quarter of 2021 at the earliest.