We are now having 40 plus thousand new cases a day.

I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.

One step forward, two steps back. That is through trajectory of combating coronavirus in this country.

The country needs a president with a plan to fight the virus and keep the economy open, not to deny reality.

We are now at a new and crucial stage of the pandemic here in the United States.

Infection rates are going up in nearly 40 states and there was even a point last week when we had over 40,000 new patients diagnosed in a single day.

As we head into the 4th of July weekend and the peak of summer, many states are still slowly reopening.

We're already seeing huge crowds gather at beaches and restaurants.

People are behaving like this pandemic is over but the reality is that we're still not even over our first wave and there could be more to come.

I don't want to be an alarmist but I don't think we can let our guard down either.

I always try to balance the two and I think it's sinking in for a lot of people that we have to be realistic about how we live and dance with this virus.

That we can't go from isolation to a complete lack of caution that there has to be a middle ground.

And we also have to be prepared for the possibility that things could still get worse.

It's a lot to process.

So I wanted to try and make sense of all of this with someone who's been finding that balance in public health crises for decades.

So today I'm speaking with Michael Osterholm.

He's the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

He was also a Minnesota state epidemiologist for 15 years.

I've been following Mike's career for years and I really do admire him.

Back in 2017 he wrote a must-read book called Deadliest Enemy, Our War Against Killer Germs.

In it he talks about the most pressing infectious disease threats of our day and how we can best address them.

At the top of that list, preventing and preparing for a global flu pandemic.

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