Experts project autumn surge in coronavirus cases, with a peak after Election Day

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Tue, 2020-09-08 10:21 — mike kraft

Experts project autumn surge in coronavirus cases, with a peak after Election Day ‘It’s not so much whether it’s coming, but how big is it going to be,’ one epidemiologist said of an expected viral wave. Joel Achenbach, Rachel Weiner Washington Post

Infectious-disease experts are warning of a potential cold-weather surge of coronavirus cases — a long-feared “second wave” of infections and deaths, possibly at a catastrophic scale. It could begin well before Election Day, Nov. 3, although researchers assume the crest would come weeks later, closer to when fall gives way to winter.

An autumn surge in covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, would not be an October surprise: It has been hypothesized since early in the pandemic because of the patterns of other respiratory viruses.

“My feeling is that there is a wave coming, and it’s not so much whether it’s coming but how big is it going to be,” said Eili Klein, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The pandemic is already a dominant campaign issue, and it’s not clear that even a spike in deaths would apply much torque to the presidential race. Outbreaks in some states could also bring pressure further down the ballot and conceivably affect turnout if there is so much community spread that voters who planned to cast ballots in person feel unsafe going to the polls.

The warnings from researchers come at a moment when, despite a rise in cases in the Upper Midwest, national numbers have been trending downward at a slow pace for several weeks following the early-summer surges in the Sun Belt.

Respiratory viruses typically begin spreading more easily a couple of weeks after schools resume classes....

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