Osterholm Quotes

"Don't tell the public that everything's going to be OK, but at the same time, tell the public we're going to get through this."

"The idea that we could create this seal around China is just totally unrealistic. I think at that point, you have to assume we're going to see widespread [2019-nCoV] transmission around the world."

"It wouldn't surprise me if in the next week or less there will be some further reconsideration in China of how to stop this [because the lockdown in Wuhan] is a little like shutting the barn door after the cows have escaped."

"The [novel] coronavirus is one that can be transferred quite readily by the respiratory tract—just breathing. So, it has the potential to spread quickly around the world. It also is one that a sizable portion of the population typically has severe illness and death."

"When the president of the United States says we're ready for these coronaviruses, that answer is absolutely not true. We have such crowded emergency rooms today. We have hospitals where people have to wait hours in hallways to get seen. That's exactly how outbreaks of coronaviruses get amplified.

"This is a bad disease. It makes people very sick, and it can kill you. And so I think that is an important combination. But the ultimate case fatality rate is still yet to be determined."

"Wuhan is the transportation capital of China, which connects basically Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Every company that has any manufacturing capacity in China right now better be looking very carefully at its supply chains."

"Screening individuals for their temperature at airports is really not an effective way to detect if someone has this [2019-nCoV] virus or not. I have likened it to fixing three of the five screen doors on your submarine."

"If we have one super shedder, that tells us we're going to have more super shedders. If there's one, there will be more."

"People sitting in waiting rooms, ERs, doctors' offices, waiting to be seen — this is where we really worry because we can have these super spreading events."

"The U.S. should be very concerned about it, but not because the fact that we're going to become clinically ill with it, but today many of the products and goods that we use in this country, including our medicines, medical equipment, etc. come every day from China."

"The thing we worry about as health officials is a thing called 'super spreading,' where we have certain individuals that are not just infectious but highly infectious."

"Each day our new findings are not good. This is beginning to look more like SARS every hour."

"You don't miss that [evidence of an nCoV superspreading event], even in a flu season. There are still a lot of questions that we don't have answers for."

"There's been no real information about what the likely source of the virus in the [Wuhan] market is....Until we understand which animal the coronavirus came from, we won’t understand if this outbreak is likely to continue. We need to shut off the source of the outbreak."

“The Chinese health authorities should get credit for jumping on this [novel coronavirus, but] we haven't learned anything yet about the likely animal reservoir and what that means for potential future transmission of this new virus to humans."

"I think that our ability to respond to these emergencies is moving in a more positive response generally… However, worldwide, we still have many areas of social and political unrest; the world is becoming less safe for public health work."

"Wuhan shouldn't have been a surprise; it's going to happen more and more. The world responded quickly to people flying out of Wuhan [as seen in Thailand]. However, it may have been more complicated if the virus emerged in a more internationally travelled city such as Beijing or Shanghai."

"The Chinese should be commended for their efforts in containing the [novel coronavirus] outbreak… but now we need to know more about the animal reservoir, so we know to prepare for future outbreaks."

"The viral hunter mindset sounds exciting, like something from a movie. There's an outbreak, you get a helicopter in, take blood and turn up the next day with a vaccine. But that’s science fiction . . . We already have viruses like MERS, SARS, Zika, and Nipah that we don't have countermeasures for."