Nations fear a second wave outbreak
As attention turns to relieving lockdowns, dread persists
As several nations begin relaxing their lockdowns following an initial peak in COVID-19 cases, attention is turning to how they can avoid a “second wave” of infections as social distancing is eased.
Italy and Spain have already started allowing people outside to exercise for the first time in nearly two months.
In hard-hit France, where confinement measures are set to be lifted on Monday, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said there is a “fine line” between lifting restrictions on movement and avoiding a new surge in infections of a disease that has killed nearly a quarter of a million people globally.
“The risk of a second wave – which would hit our already fragile hospitals, which would need us to reimpose confinement and waste the efforts and sacrifices we’ve already made – is serious,” he said last week.
Social distancing has proved effective in flattening the curve of new COVID-19 cases, buying health systems crucial time to recover and regroup. But it has also meant that a very small percentage of populations are likely to have been infected and thus developed immunity.
France’s Pasteur Institute estimates that only around six percent of the country’s population will have been infected by Monday.
Even in virus hot spots in France, it is thought that no more than 25 percent of people caught COVID-19 during the pandemic’s first wave.
This means that without a viable vaccine, experts say it is impossible to imagine life returning to normal any time soon.
“It will take several weeks or even several months to see the virus circulating again” at a high level, virologist Anne Goffard told France Inter radio.
A second wave of infections was likely, she said, “at the earliest at the end of August.”
But while experts are more or less united on the probability of a new spike in cases as lockdowns are eased, there is debate over how the second wave will compare with the first.
Some senior health officials – notably in Germany and the US – have warned it could bring even more infections than the March/April peak. Others are more optimistic that changes in personal behavior could slow new cases.
Pierachille Santus, a lung expert based in Milan, said the second wave “will probably be smaller than the first” thanks to control measures.
It is not yet known how or if the novel coronavirus will respond to warmer weather. Other viruses tend to go dormant during summer months.
“There’s probably a link [between the virus] and heat and humidity,” Jean-Francois Delfraissy, president of France’s science council, said Monday.