September 1st, 2020.


The second wave of the pandemic is about to start.

What we have witnessed, to date, was a minuscule first wave between Feb-May, in the Northern Hemisphere, most affected countries being a handful of Western European countries (U.K., Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands) and several U.S. states (New England states and California).


Once the lock-downs were lifted, a massive resurgence (albeit, heavily reduced due to warmer weather, residual lock-down effects, no schools, no in-door events and a part of the population wearing masks and reducing their exposure, vacation time, etc.) of the pandemic started in the U.S., with the first wave in the Southern hemisphere, which heavily affected many countries in Africa and Latin&South America.


Europe was a little bit later, due to lock-downs not being removed as fast as in the U.S. while also being more restrictive and slower with reopening phases.


When the lock-downs were lifted after 2 months, and not 3, (as I was personally expecting), in order to push the resurgence of the first wave closer to September, and moving to the second wave with a minimal load of the first wave resurgence, my most feared scenario (the one when the second wave will start at the back of the first wave) was bound to happen, and it happened.


This month is going to be the month when second wave starts. Schools will be fully reopened in Europe and the U.S. Everyone will return to work, vacation time is over.

The effects of schools reopening and people returning to work will not be fully felt this month. Yes, the number of cases will increase, but it won't be as drastic as people expect.


Schools and workplaces are the main driving force of the second wave, paired with the use of mass transit. It will take roughly 3 to 4 weeks to see the effects of people coming back to work, and about 6 weeks to see the effects of schools reopening.



The governments will continue with localized lock-downs, closures of businesses, quarantining and isolating sick students and their classmates, schools closures, etc. These measures will have a dual effect on the pandemic : first, it will initially slow down the spread of the virus at workplaces and schools, and secondly, it will give the governments a false image of "containing" the virus.


I do not expect any nation-wide lock-downs this month, unless a really bad outbreak will take place somewhere, but sometimes around mid-October, as I stated multiple times, the decision for nation-wide lock-downs will have to be taken. Whether it will be taken or not, that remains to be seen.


The height of the second wave will be reached in November, but it will be conditioned by lock-downs starting in October. If nation-wide lock-downs won't be in place in October, the countries that will choose the no lock-down path, will reach the peak of the second wave in January, and that peak will be catastrophic.


Not only that the number of cases will explode, come October, but the influx of hospitalizations will keep rising, many countries in the Northern Hemisphere reaching their ICU full usage before November.


We are now at the point where the number of new hospitalizations is roughly equal with the number of discharges, with ICU usage slowly, but surely, rising weekly. From now on, it will only go up, both for hospitalizations and ICU, in the Northern Hemisphere.


The worst decision ever was reopening the schools. Most children are asymptomatic, but also much more contagious. Detection of new infections is already limited by testing capacity, which is pretty much the maximum we can do, either because lack of labs, lack of testing kits or lack of regeants for tests.


The schools will stay open, for a good while. I am expecting an infection rate of about 0.5% in the first week of school, a 1% in the second week, a 3% in the third week and about 5% in the fourth week of school, and this is with a perfect detection, contact tracing and schools closures.

Most countries won't be able to do it, and about 6 weeks after the schools will be open, the infection rate will be close to 10%.

Once this percentage is reached, we will also reach an additional 3-4% infection rate for the parents, and another 1-2% infection rate at workplaces, again, with perfect detection, contact tracing and closures of businesses.


Basically, if the schools will be open for 6 weeks, there will be an additional case load of 15% in the general population, by November.

This will be about 3 times more compared to the first wave, but it most likely be higher then that, for most countries choosing to keep schools open and avoiding nation-wide lock-down.


Economically speaking, in a world based on consumerism, we need at least December sales to be "normal", which means that nation-wide lock-down will either be avoided until January, or, they will take place in October and November, with a reopening in December.


As I said before, if we reach November without nation-wide lock-downs, or at least full closure of the schools, the pandemic will devastate Europe and the U.S., the effects being similar, if not worse, then a lock-down.


We are already having a shortage of qualified healthcare workers, and there is a constant load on hospitals, most medics and nurses being at their limit. We can continue like this for another month or two, but only if hospitalizations and ICU usage will start to dwindle.


I expect the contrary, with schools being reopened, and people returning to work from their vacations.




I have a working theory on the virus, and by mid-October, it will be proven true or not.

Basically, I have always wondered why children are virtually asymptomatic, and the elderly were basically condemned to death, once they got infected.

Sure, the much weaker immune system and the presence of other health issues, are making the death rates among the elderly very high, but why the pneumonia, as the main symptom, is so grave?


My theory is that the virus, when started to spread, back in January, most exposed hosts were adults, and the virus primary functions are to replicate and avoid detection by the immune system. When most of the hosts were adults, with an immune system stronger then elderly, but weaker then a younger person or a child, the virus mutation were designed to replicate inside a normal adult body, while also avoiding the detection of a normal adult immune system.

When the virus mutates between hosts, it gets better at replicating at a certain rate, in order to avoid detection by the immune system. When the immune system detects and reacts to the presence of the virus, the virus, initially, starts to replicate faster, trying to overcome the immune response.


Now, the elderly have a much weaker immune system, and if being exposed to a mutation that is designed for a fairly strong immune system (adults), the virus replicates much faster while also overcoming the immune response from the start.

Older people, when infected with such mutations, which were (and still are) predominant among adults, were unable to detect it, the virus replicates much faster, and pneumonia, as a symptom, is very serious, and paired with underlying health issues, leads to a high death rate.


With children and younger people, it was the opposite. Their immune system is stronger then adults, they don't have underlying health issues, and when infected by mutations characteristic to adult immune systems, the virus cannot avoid detection, it replicates much faster (children have massive viral loads), but the immune system is able to fight it off, avoiding installation of symptoms.


However, schools were closed very early in the pandemic, much earlier then lock-downs, and the virus did not had enough young hosts to mutate in order to have strains that are designed for strongest of the immune systems.


If my theory is correct, and schools will stay open for 6 weeks or more, new strains will appear among younger people and children, strains that will be designed to replicate at lower rates and avoid being detected by stronger immune systems.


Those strains will lead to a much higher hospitalization rates, higher ICU usage and higher death rates among adults (close to 10%), while elderly will be killed much faster and death rates among those 70+ will be close to 100%.


Overall, if my theory is correct, by mid-October we will see ICUs being overloaded, much more then they are now, and death rates among those between 40 and 60 at or over 10%.


If my theory is not correct (and it is almost certain that is not correct), we will still see a higher hospitalization rates, ICU and death rates in the cold season, because the immune systems get weaker, for everyone.


The question remains : is the school opening and people returning to work going to drastically increase the number of infections, hospitalizations, ICU and deaths to the point where nation-wide lock-downs are the only way to avoid a medical catastrophe, that would otherwise kill and incapacitate most of the workforce?


We will see by mid-October.


I am personally expecting a disastrous second wave, if schools are kept open until mid-October and nation-wide lock-downs aren't in place by November.