Increase in cases still part of the ‘first wave’
It’s been six months since doctors discovered the coronavirus and the illness it causes, COVID-19.
Since then, the virus has sickened millions of people worldwide, shuttering businesses and tanking economies with no clear end in sight. The USA has seen more than 2 million cases and more than 115,00 deaths.
As cases level and subside in some places and rise in others, the country is beginning a summer reopening. At the same time, nationwide protests demanding racial justice after the killing of George Floyd have brought many Americans out of their homes and onto the nation’s streets.
Question: Are increasing cases in areas of the USA part of the “second wave”?
Answer: Data suggests that the first wave hasn’t ended, it’s just fluctuated since early April. About 1,000 Americans die every day.
“The pandemic isn’t like everyone in the U.S. is on one single shore experiencing a single tsunami wave followed by another one,” said Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The pandemic is made up of many local epidemics, each influenced by local mitigation efforts.”
The virus will continue to spread, he said, as long as there are susceptible people. About 60%-70% of the population would need to be infected and develop immunity to the virus to prevent its spread. New York City, the heaviest hit area of the country, has reached an infection rate of almost 20%.
Experts who track diseases make an informal distinction between a “second peak” and a “second wave.”
“We expect there to be second (and third and fourth) peaks in places where physical distancing restrictions are relaxed,” said Stephen Kissler, a mathematician and postdoctoral research fellow in Grad’s lab. “Tightening up restrictions will likely reduce cases again, and then loosening them can make them rise again ... basically, as our behavior changes and the epidemic sweeps around the country, we can expect to see multiple peaks of infection.”
A second wave, he said, “usually refers to a major resurgence of cases in the autumn that could strike all parts of the country more or less simultaneously, since viral respiratory pathogens are generally more transmissible in the autumn and winter.”
Q: Did governors cause the increases?
A: Though the federal government provided guidelines to states throughout the pandemic, the Trump administration largely gave governors authority to decide when and how to reopen.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force issued a three-phase plan aimed at helping states determine when to ease restrictions and allow residents to return to work. Critics pointed out the broad guidelines lacked details on how states could achieve some of the benchmarks.
President Donald Trump encouraged governors to “liberate” their states and defended people protesting social distancing measures enacted to slow the spread of COVID-19.
A handful of states reopened without meeting task force guidelines.
Florida reopened restaurants, retail stores and museums at half capacity as part of its first phase May 18. Not only did the state fail to meet a two-week decline in cases, but it reported an increase in cases per day a week before reopening. According to Johns Hopkins data, Florida reported 594 cases May 10. Five days later, there were more than 800 cases.
On June 5, Gov. Ron DeSantis went on to phase two reopening, even as daily cases topped the 1,000 mark.
A record 1,698 cases of COVID-19 were announced Thursday morning by the Florida Department of Health, marking the largest single-day increase in the state since the pandemic began.
Georgia was one of the first states to reopen in April without meeting guidelines, and its curve has stayed relatively flat, said Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Q: Did the protests fuel more cases?
A: Public health officials warn new cases of COVID-19 probably will emerge after mass gatherings that followed Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and racial unrest in cities across America.
Health experts fear carriers of the coronavirus with no symptoms could unwittingly infect others at protests where social distancing is not taking place. The merit of the protesters’ cause “doesn’t prevent them from getting the virus,” said Bradley Pollock, chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of California-Davis.
At least one protester in Tampa, Florida, had COVID-19. Experts say potential cases need to be monitored over two weeks, the virus’s incubation period, and we won’t know for sure how many cases have amassed from the protests until then.
Q: How will we know when it’s safe to hug?
A: Though many hope a vaccine would mean the end of the pandemic, experts say it would be only a milestone in the long journey ahead.
Trump announced in May a goal to develop 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by January.
Of the more than 100 vaccine candidates in various stages of testing, almost all are expected to be a two-dose regime, said Barry Bloom, an immunologist and professor of public health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
The conclusion is that the country will have to live with the virus for a long time and follow routines to reduce the risk of transmission. It will be safer to hug with immunity, but it won’t ever be risk-free.