Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday the current spike in Covid infections due to the delta variant may be over sooner than many believe.
However, the former FDA chief encouraged Americans to take precautions in the meantime as delta, first found in India, takes hold as the dominant variant in the country.
“I think the bottom line is we’re going to see continued growth, at least in the next three to four weeks. There’s going to be a peak sometime probably around late August, early September,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.” “I happen to believe that we’re further into this delta wave than we’re measuring so this may be over sooner than we think. But we don’t really know because we’re not doing a lot of testing now either.”
There may be another small increase in infection rates as schools reopen and become “vectors of transmission” as they did with the alpha variant, Gottlieb said.
He also warned that just wearing masks, particularly cloth masks, may not be enough to prevent Covid infections from the delta variant in classrooms. He advised schools to create pods, space out children in the classroom, avoid group meals, and suspend certain large activities, as well as improve air filtration and quality levels.
