In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the next few weeks could prove pivotal in determining whether nearly one year into the pandemic, the United States will finally be able to find its way out of the crisis. But she said the nation is facing headwinds from both the spread of highly transmissible variants of the virus, and efforts to roll back guidelines around everything from mask use to how quickly businesses can reopen.

“I think the next two or three months could go in one of two directions,” Walensky told host Ari Shapiro. “If things open up, if we’re not really cautious, we could end up with a post-spring break surge the way we saw a post-Christmas surge. We could see much more disease. We could see much more death.”

“In an alternative vision,” Walensky continued, “I see we really hunker down for a couple of more months, we get so many people vaccinated and we get to a really great place by summer.”