Biden COVID-19 adviser: We anticipate next month will be ‘horrible’

A member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board cautioned Wednesday that the upcoming weeks are likely to be the worst yet of the pandemic, pointing to an expected rise in case numbers as a result of families gathering for Christmas.

Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases specialist at New York City Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle that a “surge on top of a surge on top of a surge” was likely over the next few weeks resulting from families gathering indoors to celebrate Christmas and Americans traveling across the country.

“We do anticipate this next month will be horrible,” Gounder said, adding that the Biden administration would be coming to the White House “at one of the worst times in public health” in U.S. history.

She added that front-line staff in hospitals will “have to be making some very difficult decisions about triaging, unfortunately, who gets what care and who does not.”

The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. passed 18 million on Tuesday as more than 323,000 Americans have died from the virus; a surge in cases in recent weeks has been attributed by experts to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Some cities and states across the country have moved to tighten COVID-19 restrictions in recent days in the hope of bringing new case numbers under control. Washington, D.C., city officials moved this week to institute a ban on indoor dining, which goes into effect Wednesday and will last for several weeks.