As the death toll goes past 200,000, health experts have been warning that we should brace ourselves for a surge in new coronavirus cases in the fall, especially if people start to let down their guard and not follow safety precautions, either because they got tired of being restricted or they felt that the crisis had passed. Recall that with the 1918 pandemic, it too started in the early part of that year, subsided in the middle, and then roared back towards the end of the year and most of the deaths occurred in that second phase.
This graphic from the New York Times suggests that there has been a recent surge in new cases, which is worrying.
Our provincial government here in Quebec has declared it the beginning of the second wave. And that everyone has to respect the public health rules or this could be a worse one than the first.
By the way, if there was a need to confirm that stupidity is even more contagious, a protest against mandatory masks was held a few days ago in front of the parliament in Quebec and there were US flags and Trump banners (not that there isn’t some homegrown stupidity but the US-based variety is particularly intense and contagious).
In the case of the US, it looks like this will be the 3rd wave of Covid rather than the 2nd, since we’ve already had a second wave over the summer caused by both governments and ordinary citizens not taking the disease seriously enough.
@ 1 Jean
I saw some clips of that of that I think, but for some reason I thought it was Montreal. Quebec makes more sense. The flags were weird—besides US flags and Trump banners I think I saw an Iranian flag. That was a lot of crazy people.
I have seen some shots of demos in Toronto but so far they seem to have been small.
I don’t think Ontario has officially called it a second wave but we are back to 400+ cases a day this week so it’s looking likely and it is not even cold yet.
I see two peaks already, it’s just that the first derivative is once again positive, but the second is negative. For now.
(which suggests to me that it’s the third wave that’s just begun)
(For those unfamiliar with calculus and/or John Morales tedious style of communication, he’s trying to say that the curve is sloping up, but becoming less steep.)
“Has the pandemic second wave begun?”
Globally, yes. Except in America, where the first wave never really ended.
In the US different states are at different phases. Some just started their first wave, some are well over their first wave, some are over their second wave, etc.