Former FDA commissioner hopeful U.S. can avoid singificant flu season amid pandemic
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb didn't paint a rosy picture about the future of the coronavirus pandemic Sunday during an appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation. He said he anticipates continuous regional epidemics, like the one the Northeast experienced earlier in the year and that Sun Belt states are dealing with now, going forward. Those, he said, will eventually be brought under control, but it seems unlikely that the entire nation will have contained the virus at the same moment in the near future.
Gottlieb did, however, note that Americans can probably take solace in the fact that the upcoming flu season should be relatively mild, as it's been in the Southern Hemisphere.
A bright spot? "I think we can be optimistic perhaps that we're going to have probably a less significant flu season than we anticipated," @ScottGottliebMD says. "Maybe we found a happy medium between strict lockdowns and just letting this spread unfettered." pic.twitter.com/JfLgOvLcL5
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) August 2, 2020
Experts were concerned about a high amount of flu cases coinciding with another coronavirus resurgence, which potentially could have added even more strain to already fragile health-care systems, not just in the United States, but across the globe. But it sounds like that risk is shrinking.
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