Coronavirus: A Second Wave On the Way?
Health experts have been warning of a possible second wave of coronavirus for months. As coronavirus cases top 8 million globally and new cases surge across the country and around the world, some doctors and scientists say the second wave is already upon us. But others caution that this recent uptick, which many attribute to loosened lockdown restrictions and people not following social distancing protocols, is not evidence of a second wave, but rather a continuation of the first.
On Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told CNN the current surge in new coronavirus cases is not a second wave. He added that a second wave in the fall, which many experts, including Fauci himself, have predicted, is “not inevitable.”
Obviously, this worry is reasonable, and with a big likely to be true. From the statistics of confirmed cases and deaths in the world, and the reopening progress, the long-term protest in many EU countries and USA, and the unpredictable vaccine development.
Now, USA, Brazil, and Russia are the top 3 countries with high confirmed cases, which is most severe in the world. And India is showing the potential of increment. Without strict lockdown policy and power and sufficient health care support, the outbreak of COVID-19 seems no signal of stop all over the world.
Most public health experts – including the Director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease – have said they anticipate a big uptick to happen this fall or winter.
A new model also suggests an increase in coronavirus-related deaths this September, CNN reported.
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Why then? Flu cases tend to drop off during the summer, which has led some health experts to hope COVID-19 cases go down when the weather gets warmer as well. Dr. Amesh Adalja, a pandemic preparedness expert at Johns Hopkins University, told the Los Angeles Times that other coronaviruses don’t fare well during summer months because, once outside the body, both the hotter temperatures dry them out and the ultraviolet light from sunnier weather affects them.
With the relaxation of the lockdown rules, warnings are being sounded about a possible resurgence of COVID-19 cases – a so-called second wave. The second wave of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-20 was particularly devastating, as was the second wave of the H1N1 epidemic in 2009-10. So what can be done to avoid a second wave of COVID-19?
The epidemic could continue into autumn and winter when seasonal flu might be prevalent. While it appears that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not strongly affected by weather, the healthcare system might become overwhelmed if COVID-19 and the flu strike at the same time.
Indeed, people are already talking about a “second wave” hitting China and Iran. But the concept of a second wave is flawed and creates dangerous misconceptions about the pandemic.
The idea of a second wave stems from the flawed comparison with the seasonality of the flu virus.
Marc Lipsitch, DPhil, is professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. He discussed the prospects for mitigating a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential approaches to faster development of a vaccine, with JAMA Editor-in-Chief Howard Bauchner, MD, on Dr. Bauchner’s podcast, “Conversations with Dr. Bauchner.”
“Almost every government is talking about lifting control measures. Not every government, but many, because of the economic burdens. Given the fairly high caseloads that we have in the United States, that’s a really risky thing to do right now,” Lipsitch said.
“I hope that the summer weather will help,” he added, but his research indicates that the warmer weather will only reduce transmission rates by about 20%. “That’s only enough to slow it down, but not enough to stop it.”
Jurisdictions may learn more about which tactics work best in mitigating transmission during this period and may learn whether some mitigation tactics such as school closings are valuable.