A second wave is rising
Jul. 29th, 2020 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterThe virulogists predicted a second Covid-19 wave months ago. The looser the social restrictions right now, the higher the danger of a second peak of the pandemic, is what they said. Now it turns out they were totally right. Germany, Spain and Greece were among the first to loosen the restrictions. Many countries opened their shops and restaurants and malls again. But now that Australia has seen a resurgence of infections in result of opening many bars and nightclubs, they decided to tighten the measures once more. In the meantime, the WHO is warning that the Covid-19 might never completely go away.
It's natural that people want to live their normal lives again, and travel, and meet other people. Hence, the resurging Covid cases worldwide. In many countries that had previously boasted of having contained it, the infection quotient has exceeded 1.0 again. This means the virus is again spreading exponentially. Tourism has restarted, and many people are meeting in large groups again, although no one ever said it was safe to do it again. If the trend continues, a second wave is inevitable.
The US and Brazil are having the hardest time of all, followed by India and my country South Africa. There have been 2.5 million infected in Brazil alone. Things are not looking good in Europe either. After a brief period of relief, the pandemic is coming back there now.
To be honest, there is no clear, internationally recognised criterion about how to define a second wave. Generally, this means a large number of new hotspots appearing related to the previous period of containment. The same is valid about a potential third wave and so on.
We've often heard comparisons to the Spanish flu of the late 10s of the last century. Estimates vary between 20 and 50 million victims of that pandemic. It passed through three waves, the second being the worst. The virus tended to mutate between the various phases. A similar scenario now looks very likely for the Covid-19 as well.
In the best case scenario, during the mutation process the virus would lose its power. But if that were to happen, lots of people will need to have acquired immunity. The thing is, no one is certain how Covid-19 will develop in this respect.
The human organism does work to build immunity against most viruses. Once the patient is infected, they develop antibodies so they could be protected against a second infection. But whether this really happens in the case with Covid-19 is yet unclear. Lots of cases are being recorded of people who've passed through infection, and just a couple of months later there are no antibodies left in them. This could mean they are susceptible to a second infection.
At the peak of the first wave, there were some opinions that herd immunity could ultimately limit the spread of the disease. This implied that 70-90% of all people should have biult an immunity against the virus so that it could be further limited. But recent researches indicate that herd immunity is impossible to achieve at the current conditions.
The news is not going to be good, come winter. Viruses tend to flourish at lower temperatures - an example is the outbreak in a number of slaughterhouses. While this may not seem obvious right now, when the majority of the human population is living through summer (save for Brazil, out of the large hotspots), this factor will only be getting more obvious as the year nears its end. People will be spending more time indoors, where the air exchange is not as dynamic, so the virus would be spread more easily. Furthermore, the flu season will complicate things additionally. Unless we've come up with working mechanisms to counter that, the Spanish flu pattern could be repeated, the second wave becoming much worse than the first.
It's natural that people want to live their normal lives again, and travel, and meet other people. Hence, the resurging Covid cases worldwide. In many countries that had previously boasted of having contained it, the infection quotient has exceeded 1.0 again. This means the virus is again spreading exponentially. Tourism has restarted, and many people are meeting in large groups again, although no one ever said it was safe to do it again. If the trend continues, a second wave is inevitable.
The US and Brazil are having the hardest time of all, followed by India and my country South Africa. There have been 2.5 million infected in Brazil alone. Things are not looking good in Europe either. After a brief period of relief, the pandemic is coming back there now.
To be honest, there is no clear, internationally recognised criterion about how to define a second wave. Generally, this means a large number of new hotspots appearing related to the previous period of containment. The same is valid about a potential third wave and so on.
We've often heard comparisons to the Spanish flu of the late 10s of the last century. Estimates vary between 20 and 50 million victims of that pandemic. It passed through three waves, the second being the worst. The virus tended to mutate between the various phases. A similar scenario now looks very likely for the Covid-19 as well.
In the best case scenario, during the mutation process the virus would lose its power. But if that were to happen, lots of people will need to have acquired immunity. The thing is, no one is certain how Covid-19 will develop in this respect.
The human organism does work to build immunity against most viruses. Once the patient is infected, they develop antibodies so they could be protected against a second infection. But whether this really happens in the case with Covid-19 is yet unclear. Lots of cases are being recorded of people who've passed through infection, and just a couple of months later there are no antibodies left in them. This could mean they are susceptible to a second infection.
At the peak of the first wave, there were some opinions that herd immunity could ultimately limit the spread of the disease. This implied that 70-90% of all people should have biult an immunity against the virus so that it could be further limited. But recent researches indicate that herd immunity is impossible to achieve at the current conditions.
The news is not going to be good, come winter. Viruses tend to flourish at lower temperatures - an example is the outbreak in a number of slaughterhouses. While this may not seem obvious right now, when the majority of the human population is living through summer (save for Brazil, out of the large hotspots), this factor will only be getting more obvious as the year nears its end. People will be spending more time indoors, where the air exchange is not as dynamic, so the virus would be spread more easily. Furthermore, the flu season will complicate things additionally. Unless we've come up with working mechanisms to counter that, the Spanish flu pattern could be repeated, the second wave becoming much worse than the first.
