Just a few weeks ago, Dr. Michael Osterholm, an adviser to Democratic Nominee Joe Biden, falsely predicted that hospitals would be “collapsing” by early December.
“We need somebody to say this is what’s happening,” Osterholm said on MSNBC in mid-November. “This is how bad it is, we’re going to see hospitals collapsing in the next two to three weeks, and this is what we’ve got to do to address that.”
“Just remember one thing for the next three weeks,” he continued. “The cases are already in the pipeline, but people who are infected this morning, will be the cases of next week in the hospital, and few days after that will be in the intensive care rooms and dying.”
The pro-lockdown doctor concluded the interview by claiming, “even if we did everything we could right now, we would still not turn this thing around for literally three to four more weeks.”
Three weeks after Osterholm’s grave comments, hospitals around the country still appear to be operating even as COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. rise.
Osterholm, who has a history of flip-flopping on his COVID-19 predictions and policy positions, declined The Federalist’s request for comment.
In March, Osterholm wrote a piece for the Washington Post arguing against lockdowns, citing the need for children to be in school and people to return to work.
In the same article, he claimed that COVID-19 would only “go away” with the development of a vaccine or herd immunity, neither of which he believed would “occur quickly.” The development of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have since proven that belief to be false.
A few months later, Osterholm came out strongly in support of more government lockdowns, writing articles for multiple publications including the New York Times calling for another round of stringent restrictions forcing people to stay at home.
In August, Osterholm called for a nationwide lockdown, in which he envisioned Congress paying for workers lost wages and for companies’ lost revenue. “If we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks and if we did that, we could drive the numbers down,” he said on Yahoo Finance Live.
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The doctor also praised Europe’s lockdown model, claiming that the virus was “largely contained” there. He has failed to acknowledge the fact that many European countries are experiencing severe spikes in the second round of coronavirus outbreaks.