End lockdown, is the call of the hour that's being echoed owing to the economic damage and the suffering of the poor and also migrantsin many nations.
Reports of road traffic rising in the UK have been hitting headlines while migrant movements in India are widely shared on social media. Other reports say that hair style shops, restaurants and movie theaters started opening in the US, while in Germany there's shopping as usual despite risks involved.
Second wave
With this, a second wave of the pandemic has already been pointed out by experts. Dr. Anthony Fauci said that it's almost inevitable, while a poll revealed 79 percent of those surveyed opined that there would be a second wave.
Scientists have also tried projecting how COVID-19 could play out after the pandemic ends in a report published in Science Mag. A model of transmission was done using estimates of seasonality, immunity, and cross-immunity other coronaviruses from the USA. Scientists projected a winter outbreak, a second wave of SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus) and also could be most severe pandemic.
Resurgence of coronavirus in 2024
In addition to expanding critical care capacity and effective therapies, they also recommended a "prolonged or intermittent social distancing" until 2022, while moving toward herd immunity, until a vaccine/treatment becomes available. The duration of immunity to Coronavirus should also to be studied, they said.
Essentially, they predicted "resurgence in contagion" in 2024.
At the same time projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, suggest US reopening dates, as cited by White House, such as May 28 for New York and June 27 for Georgia, based on the assumption that the coronavirus infections curve would come down as soon as it reaches the peak, even acknowledged by the researchers, according to a report in Bloomberg.
Deaths?
Some experts on statistics say that there is no clear evidence that COVID-19 is causing huge loss of life as counting the number of deaths was not the way of doing it, but to look at who is dying is important, says Nobel laureate and biophysicist Michael Levitt in an audio interview. He further says that these deaths might as well be only a little more than the number of deaths in normal times.
There is a similarity in the rise of infections, as it was steep and quick than the decline in cases. If the same is applied to US where there is a peak now, there might be six months to control the virus.
Study that predicted resurgence in contagion in 2024 says that it depends on the 'prevailing unknowns' about the novel coronavirus and also on the actions of the people and the authorities.
There are concerns that even if a vaccine is developed, it may not reach the whole of global population. Also vaccine could stop virus replication, but researchers say that strengthening of vascular system is a key in the treatment to prevent deaths.
There are no scenes of the virus receding soon for now in 2020 for the human life to return to normalcy. But this could also be a norm which we may encounter even in 2024.
