Trump says pandemic is ‘hopefully’ near end. What do experts say about a second wave?
President Donald Trump suggested on Monday the United States is nearing the end of the pandemic, but some health experts have offered a more bleak prediction, saying they expect a second wave of the outbreak soon.
The president made the comments during a news briefing outside the White House in which he discussed the economy, the election and the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is as we’re hopefully rounding the final turn in the pandemic,” he said while talking about the stock market and economic recovery.
Health experts, however, have long said there will likely be a “second wave” of coronavirus infections during the fall and winter months in the United States.
And as summer comes to an end, some warn it’s time to start bracing for it.
When will the second wave start?
Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Irvine, told The Washington Post he “firmly” believes there will be “distinct second waves.”
“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 told the Post. “Some places will peak around Thanksgiving, some places will peak around Christmas, some places not until January and February.”
Experts have also said the second wave could be just “weeks away,” CBS News reported over the weekend.
Additionally, a model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation last week predicted a daily death toll of more than 1,900 on Election Day. It predicts 410,000 Americans will die by the end of the year, more than double the current toll.
Experts also use past pandemics to make predictions about COVID-19’s second wave.
“Examples include the 1918 flu pandemic and the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic. Both of these events began with a mild wave of infections in the spring, followed by another surge of cases in the fall,” a report from Johns Hopkins says.
The report also predicts the second wave could come soon due to human behavior.
“People are frustrated,” it says. “Cellphone data are showing decreased social distancing.”
Will the second wave be worse?
The pandemic is hard to predict because it’s not a seasonal virus yet, Ellen Foxman, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine and expert on respiratory viruses, told The Washington Post. Additionally, it can spread in “all kinds of weather” and people don’t have immunity to it yet.
A second wave could be worse because it could coincide with other seasonal viruses, like the flu, according to Johns Hopkins. Also, more people will likely be carrying the virus at the start of the second wave, meaning it could spread more quickly.
“When the coronavirus first appeared in the U.S. in early 2020, it started with a very small number of infected people, so it took longer to spread,” the report says. “A second wave could start with many unknowing coronavirus carriers in many different areas, and the risk of transmission increases when people spend more time together indoors, which is more common in the fall and winter months.”
The good news: experts are more prepared.
Doctors have had more success with treating patients and more access to Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE, than at the beginning of the pandemic, ABC News reports.
“In terms of absolute numbers, we are learning much more about how to treat patients with serious complications compared to at the start of the pandemic,” Dr. John Brownstein, a Harvard Medical School professor and ABC News contributor, told ABC News. “Now that we know more effective protocols and treatments, the number of deaths will likely go down.”
More younger people are also getting infected now.
“Early on, we really focused on the elderly 65+ years of age with underlying conditions,” Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease physician at South Shore Health in Massachusetts, told ABC. “As we reopen, we see a lot of young people getting the virus. Most young people do not have underlying conditions, so they do a lot better than the older, more susceptible populations.”
Economists have said a second wave could also “stunt” job and economic gains the U.S. has recently seen if the virus surges again in the fall, NBC News reports.
Trump has said he wouldn’t shut down the country again during a second wave, McClatchy News reported in May.
“People say that’s a very distinct possibility,” he said of the second wave. “It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country. We’re going to put out the fires. Whether it’s an ember or a flame, we’re going to put it out. But we’re not closing our country.”
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 11:10 AM with the headline "Trump says pandemic is ‘hopefully’ near end. What do experts say about a second wave?."
