San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
EXPERTS PROJECT AUTUMN SURGE IN CORONAVIRUS CASES, DEATHS
National rates have been trending downward for weeks
Infectious-disease experts are warning of a potential cold-weather surge of coronavirus cases — a longfeared “second wave” of infections and deaths, possibly at a catastrophic scale. It could begin well before Election Day, Nov. 3, although researchers assume the crest would come weeks later, closer to when fall gives way to winter.
An autumn surge in COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, would not be an October surprise: It has been hypothesized since early in the pandemic because of the patterns of other respiratory viruses.
“My feeling is that there is a wave coming, and it’s not so much whether it’s coming but how big is it going to be,” said Eili Klein, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The pandemic is already a dominant campaign issue, and even a spike in deaths might not apply much torque to the presidential race. But outbreaks in some states could bring pressure further down the ballot and conceivably affect turnout if there is so much community spread spread that that voters voters who who planned to cast ballots in person feel unsafe going to the polls.
The The warnings warnings from from researchers recome at a moment when, despite a rise in cases in the Upper Midwest, national numbers have been trending downward at a slow pace for several weeks following the early-summer surges in the Sun Belt.
Respiratory viruses typically begin spreading more easily a couple of weeks after schools resume classes. Although though the the pandemic pandemic has has driven many school districts to remote learning, there is a broad push across the country to return to something like normal life.
The Labor Day holiday weekend is a traditional time of travel and group activities, and, like Independence Day and Memorial Day, could seed transmission of the virus if people fail to take precautions. And viruses tend to spread more easily in cooler, less humid weather, which allows them to remain viable longer. As the weather cools, people tend to congregate more indoors.
The coronavirus has a relatively long incubation period, and the disease progression in patients with severe illnesses also tends to be drawn out over several weeks. As a result, any spike in deaths will lag weeks behind a spike in infections. And the infection surges have consistently followed the loosening of shutdown orders and other restrictions.
A model produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and published Friday forecasts a “most likely” daily death toll of 1,907 on Election Day, roughly double the current toll. Under the IHME forecast, the numbers would continue to rise until early December, peaking at more than 2,800 deaths daily.
By year’s end, 410,000 people in the United States will have died under the model’s most-likely scenario. That’s more than double current fatalities. The model also produced best-case and worst-case scenarios — ranging from 288,000 to 620,000 deaths by Jan. 1 — depending on the degree to which people wear masks, adhere to social distancing and take other precautions.
“I firmly believe we will see distinct second waves, including in places that are done with their first waves. New York City, I’m looking at you,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine who studied the October surge in cases when the mild pandemic influenza virus circulated in 2009.
“I expect fall waves starting in mid-october and getting worse as fall heads into winter, and reaching a crescendo certainly after the election,” he said. “Some places will peak around Thanksgiving, some places will peak around Christmas, some places not until January and February.”
As of Saturday, more than 6.2 million people in the U.S. had tested positive for the coronavirus and more than 188,000 people had died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Globally there have been more than 26 milion cases and more than 877,000 deaths.