CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky gave a very impassioned, dire warning about a new surge of covid cases and deaths on Monday, and she appeared with Rachel Maddow Monday night to elaborate on her fears of where the U.S. could be headed.

“We have so much to look forward to, so much potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I am scared,” Walensky said during Monday’s White House covid briefing.

Maddow asked Walensky about why she’s warning about “impending doom” with so much “measured optimism” in the country right now.

Walensky said she shares that optimism, given the millions of people being vaccinated every day and how “we can almost see the end.”

However, she is still very concerned about cases going up:

“I’m watching us have increased numbers of hypertransmissible variants. I’m watching our travel numbers tick up, and the sense is, I’ve seen what it looks like to anticipate the oncoming surge. And what I really would hate to have happen is to have another oncoming surge just as we’re reaching towards getting so many more people vaccinated. You know, we’re still losing people at 1,000 deaths a day. And so I just can’t face another surge when there’s so much optimism right at our fingertips.”

Maddow asked if the pace of vaccinations now means that even if cases rise, we won’t see a similar kind of surge in hospitalizations and deaths.

Walensky said it’s a serious question they’re looking at, telling Maddow it could end up being the case that “we’ve done so well in vaccinating the more senior members of our society that deaths might not be what we would expect with prior surges.”

She continued to warn about the serious issue of people facing long-term health impacts of getting the virus.

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

The post CDC Director Explains Dire Warning to Rachel Maddow: ‘I Just Can’t Face Another Surge When There’s So Much Optimism Right at Our Fingertips’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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