The US is close to having 'exponential spread' in some areas, and the hardest part may still be ahead, former FDA official says

The country is facing another cycle of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it may be the hardest yet, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Monday.

"I think we're right now at the cusp of what's going to be exponential spread in parts of the country," Gottlieb said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"If we took aggressive steps right now, we could potentially forestall the worst of it, but we're not going to do that," because there's a lot of fatigue and "policy resistance to taking strong action," he said.

"We really have two or three months of the acute phase of this pandemic to get through," he said. "This is going to be the hardest phase, probably."