Covid-19 Is Already Building Up for That Second Wave
Cases surge in several states as the coronavirus digs in for the long haul
Don’t expect a summer break from Covid-19. As Robert Roy Britt reports for Elemental, experts say the virus is likely to keep circulating through the summer.
The nationwide curve was flattened thanks to stay-at-home orders and other preventive measures, says Mark Cameron, PhD, an immunologist and medical researcher in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. But rather than continuing to bend the curve down, as many other countries have done, ours is on a “disappointing plateau,” he says, a “slow burn” that’s putting seeds of the virus in every nook and cranny of the country.
That means the current wave of infections could be far from over, Cameron says. It might simply persist at current daily case levels, or even possibly swell this summer and then, if it recedes at all, roar back as a larger wave this fall.
“Any truly naive population or community that has not seen the virus yet is a perfect opportunity for the virus to enter and spread unmitigated,” Cameron tells Elemental. “The virus wants to survive.”
