From the marbled halls of Italy to the
wheat fields of Kansas, health authorities are increasingly warning that the
question isn’t whether a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths will
hit, but when — and how badly.
As more countries and U.S. states chaotically reopen for business — including
some where infection rates are still rising — managing future cases is as
important as preventing them.
In India, which partly eased its virus lockdown this week, health authorities
scrambled Wednesday to contain an outbreak at a massive market. Experts in
hard-hit Italy, which just began easing some restrictions, warned lawmakers
that a new wave of virus infections and deaths is coming. They urged
intensified efforts to identify possible new victims, monitor their symptoms
and trace their contacts.
Germany warned of a second and even a third wave, and threatened to re-impose
virus restrictions if new cases can’t be contained. German Chancellor Angela
Merkel was meeting Wednesday with the country’s 16 governors to discuss further
loosening restrictions that have crippled Europe’s largest economy.
“There will be a second wave, but the problem is to which extent. Is it a
small wave or a big wave? It’s too early to say,” said Olivier Schwartz,
head of the virus and immunity unit at France’s Pasteur Institute.
Many areas are still struggling with the first wave of this pandemic. Brazil
for the first time locked down a large city, the capital of Maranhão state.
Across the ocean, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa has shot
up 42% in the past week and infections are expected to surpass 50,000 on
Wednesday.
An Associated Press analysis, meanwhile, found that U.S. infection rates
outside the New York City area are in fact rising, notably in rural areas. It
found New York’s progress against the virus was overshadowing increasing
infections elsewhere.
“Make no mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community,
perhaps even more now than in previous weeks,” said Linda Ochs, director
of the Health Department in Shawnee County, Kansas.
The virus is known to have infected more than 3.6 million and killed more than
251,000 people, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins that all experts agree is
an undercount due to limited testing, uneven victim criteria and deliberate
concealment by some governments.
The U.S. has seen over 71,000 deaths amid its 1.2 million infections, and
Europe has endured over 144,000 reported coronavirus deaths. Behind each of
those vast numbers is a family in pain.
“Burying both parents at the same time? It’s hard,” said Desmond
Tolbert, who lost his mother and father in rural southwest Georgia. Because
they had the virus, he couldn’t be with them when they died.
U.S. President Donald Trump, with his eye on being reelected in November, is
pushing hard to ease state stay-at-home orders and resuscitate the U.S.
economy, which has seen over 30 million workers lose their jobs in less than
two months. Trump is expected to wind down the country’s coronavirus task
force, possibly within weeks, despite concerns that states aren’t being careful
enough as they reopen.
A century ago, the Spanish flu epidemic’s second wave was far deadlier than its
first, in part because authorities allowed mass gatherings from Philadelphia to
San Francisco.
As Italy’s lockdown eased this week, Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, president of the
Superior Institute of Health, urged “a huge investment” of resources
to train medical personnel to monitor possible new cases. He said tracing apps
— which are being built by dozens of countries and companies and touted as a
possible technological solution — aren’t enough to manage future waves of
infection.
“We are not out of the epidemic. We are still in it. I don’t want people
to think there’s no more risk and we go back to normal,” said Dr. Giovanni
Rezza, the head of the institute’s infectious disease department.
In Germany, authorities may reimpose restrictions on any county that reports 50
new cases for every 100,000 inhabitants within the past week.
Lothar Wieler, head of Germany’s national disease control center, said
scientists “know with great certainty that there will be a second
wave” of infections but said Germany is well-prepared to deal with it. The
country has been hailed for testing widely and has suffered four times fewer
deaths than Italy or Britain, which both have smaller populations.
Britain has begun recruiting 18,000 people to trace contacts of people
infected. British officials acknowledge that they should have done more testing
and tracing earlier and could learn from South Korea, which brought its
outbreak under control by rigorously testing, tracing and isolating infected
people.
South Africa, which has years of experience tracking HIV and other infections,
is already testing and tracing widely. Turkey has an army of 5,800 teams of
contact tracers who have tracked down and tested nearly half a million people
linked to infected cases. Israel plans to conduct 100,000 antibody tests to
determine how widespread the coronavirus outbreak has been and prevent a second
wave.
India was concentrated on the immediate drama around the market in the southern
city of Chennai, which is now tied to at least 1,000 virus cases. Another 7,000
people connected to the now-shuttered Koyambedu market are being traced and
quarantined. Experts are worried about a health catastrophe in a country of 1.3
billion people with an already stressed medical system.
New confirmed daily infections in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day
are well over 1,000, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. And public health
officials warn that the failure to lower the infection rate could lead to many
more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people venture out and businesses
reopen.
“The faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost — but the higher the
human cost, because the more lives lost,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
“That, my friends, is the decision we are really making.”
Trump acknowledged the toll but argued that keeping the U.S. economy closed
carries deadly costs of its own, such as drug abuse and suicides.
“I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be
affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our
country open and we have to get it open soon,” he said during a visit to
Arizona in which he did not don a face mask.
Source: Voice of America
