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- A former FDA commissioner warned the school year could bring a rise in COVID-19 cases, particularly in northern states.
- Dr. Scott Gottlieb said "northern states are more impervious to the kind of spread we saw in the South, but they're not completely impervious."
- His comments come as the highly infectious Delta variant is spreading across the US.
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Former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said northern states may see a rise in COVID-19 cases as children go back to school and areas across the US see rises in infections amid the spread of the Delta variant.
In an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, host John Dickerson asked Gottlieb on his thoughts on the current state of the pandemic, citing a recent poll that determined Americans think the pandemic is getting worse.
"It's certainly getting worse," Gottlieb said. "I think you're going to start to see improvements, particularly in the South. There is evidence that the rate of growth in the cases in the South is starting to decline."
The Delta variant has in recent weeks been tied to an alarming wave of new infections in some states, including Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri, which were among the hardest-hit throughout the summer.
"I think that this week you may see some of the states that have been the outbreak states start to tip over in terms of showing less cases on a daily basis," Gottlieb said. "The epidemic is clearly slowing in states like Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri but at the same time, we now see the virus spreading to northern states."
-Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) August 8, 2021
Gottlieb said northern states like North Carolina, Indiana, and Illinois are now seeing a surge in cases. For example, in North Carolina, the state reported more than 4,000 COVID-19 cases on Friday, and hospital beds are filling up, Raleigh News & Observer reported.
"I think the northern states are more impervious to the kind of spread we saw in the South, but they're not completely impervious," Gottlieb added. "They have higher vaccination rates. There's been more prior infection. But there's still people who are vulnerable in those states. And the challenge right now is that the infection is going to start to collide with the opening of school."
As school begins in a few weeks, the risk of infections has raised concerns with health officials.
In an interview on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said: "The largest number of children so far in the whole pandemic right now is in the hospital, 1,450 kids in the hospital from COVID-19."
To help curb the spread of the virus, new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance recommends that everyone in schools wear a face mask, even if they are fully vaccinated.