The Second Wave

Frijj said:
Off the top of my head I can't give you a textbook definition of what a second wave might be. I'm not sure if we've ever had a second wave of this kind before. The second wave of the Spanish Flu was a mutation, whereas a second wave of COVID-19 would be the same strain, coming back because it now has access to a population who weren't susceptible due to lockdown.

The effective reproduction number (R) once we're in lockdown is estimated to be about 1.2, so the number of new cases will fall considerably the longer we're in lockdown, but as soon as you release lockdown, R rises again and cases will grow and grow.
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So this is unlikely to be the second wave as numbers of new cases haven't fallen at all, or certainly not for any sort of prolonged period. We won't know for certain for a long time though.
 


Hammer said:
So this is unlikely to be the second wave as numbers of new cases haven't fallen at all, or certainly not for any sort of prolonged period. We won't know for certain for a long time though.
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I don't mean to suggest a second wave is coming now, or that we are in the midst of a second wave at the moment (quite the opposite) but the longer we stay in lockdown, we'll eventually get over a peak and cases and deaths will decline...as soon as we come out of lockdown that is when I'm suggesting there likely will be one.

In a nutshell I'm saying we're in the first wave now, we will eventually peak and decline as lockdown limits the number of cases and then if/when lockdown is reduced, bang second wave.

I realise when I said 'is it coming, or is this it' that might have sounded like I was suggesting 'is this the second wave atm' but what I meant was 'is this it' as in 'is this all we're getting?'
 
Frijj said:
I don't mean to suggest a second wave is coming now, or that we are in the midst of a second wave at the moment (quite the opposite) but the longer we stay in lockdown, we'll eventually get over a peak and cases and deaths will decline...as soon as we come out of lockdown that is when I'm suggesting there likely will be one.

In a nutshell I'm saying we're in the first wave now, we will eventually peak and decline as lockdown limits the number of cases and then if/when lockdown is reduced, bang second wave.

I realise when I said 'is it coming, or is this it' that might have sounded like I was suggesting 'is this the second wave atm' but what I meant was 'is this it' as in 'is this all we're getting?'
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Oh right. We’d have to lock down for a long time for this to be it, I think. If we relax lockdown and cases increase is that really a second wave though or just a delay in the middle of the initial wave?
 
Hammer said:
Oh right. We’d have to lock down for a long time for this to be it, I think. If we relax lockdown and cases increase is that really a second wave though or just a delay in the middle of the initial wave?
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There is no 'second wave' as such as I understand it. The perceived 'second wave' is just a consequence of our behaviour ie. relaxing the lockdown. We can't control how many people the virus infects but we can control the time scale to which the infections occur.

My fear is that the relaxation of the lockdown will be greeted with hysteria and a total neglect of caution leading to a much sharper and significant level of transmission that will lead to a horrendous second spate of infections.
 
palm 1 said:
Don’t you think the plan was to get a good majority of the population infected before lock down. ? Why else did we continue allowing large gatherings when other countries didn’t. I feel as though the Government would have continued a bit longer but changed course due to the media backlash . If we fail to get herd immunity, surely we’ll spend the foreseeable doing a tragic version of the Hokey Cokey.
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They changed course due to the numbers coming out of Italy.
Frijj said:
"About that second wave: let me be clear. Second waves are real things, and we have seen them in flu pandemics. This is not a flu pandemic. Flu rules do not apply. There might well be a second wave, I honestly don’t know. But vulnerable people should not be exposed to a virus right now in the service of a hypothetical future."

www.theguardian.com

I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire | William Hanage

Vulnerable people should not be exposed to Covid-19 right now in the service of a hypothetical future, says William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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The whole point of herd immunity is to protect the vulnerable not to expose them.
 
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sambantam82 said:
My fear is that the relaxation of the lockdown will be greeted with hysteria and a total neglect of caution leading to a much sharper and significant level of transmission that will lead to a horrendous second spate of infections.
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Not sure about that like, definitely being programmed to wash hands more frequently, keep distances etc, loads of people will keep playing to those rules as second nature even when/if the lock down is relaxed...I hope that's the case anyway.
 
SAFCOldie said:
Not sure about that like, definitely being programmed to wash hands more frequently, keep distances etc, loads of people will keep playing to those rules as second nature even when/if the lock down is relaxed...I hope that's the case anyway.
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True although the virus was in its formative stages while we were developing our new habits. By the time the government cave into public pressure the virus will be much more prevalent.
 
The second wave worries me. The longer it goes on, the longer the extremely vulnerable going to be kept in their homes.
 
palm 1 said:
Don’t you think the plan was to get a good majority of the population infected before lock down. ? Why else did we continue allowing large gatherings when other countries didn’t. I feel as though the Government would have continued a bit longer but changed course due to the media backlash . If we fail to get herd immunity, surely we’ll spend the foreseeable doing a tragic version of the Hokey Cokey.
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Interesting thought. Suppose from a strategic point of view it made sense to max hospital capacity before locking down the population.

Fewer people to catch it second time round.
 

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