That's what I originally said, so I'm just reminding you! And it would be a mistake to be more specific...which is my whole point. We should keep an open mind, and avoid attaching too much significance to this or that headline. If you read elbows' posts you'll see detailed reasons for why he or she is keeping an open mind. Elbows' posts are the most valuable resource in the thread. All I'm suggesting is that people should compare those posts with the media narrative, mostly in the papers, which says that after the current surge there may be a second surge, and...then...problem solved? I suspect lots of people are telling themselves that a second surge will, with a bit of luck, be the end of the disaster. They're understandably desperate for the lockdown to end and for the economy and employment to be salvaged. But these surges are mostly about the virus overwhelming the NHS. If the NHS can cope, that's not a surge in many people's minds. When hospitals stop being charnel houses there will be a perception that things are back to normal. But deaths will continue at a high rate, with covid continuing to suck up a high proportion of hospital resources, with wards and theatres repurposed as ICUs until the end of next year. That will be the new normal. And as the months go by while we wait for vaccines, the number of deaths may reach a much, much bigger number than the most popular figures in the papers, which so far don't seem to be higher than forty-something thousand. The papers are also desperate for survival, let's not lose sight of that. They know that if they start with the big, bleak numbers, readers won't thank them. It's a difficult balance for a paper to get right.
Well there are a whole bunch of reasons why I only believe in taking it one week a time at the moment. If there was a time where it looked like I knew what would happen next in the first few months, its only because I knew what the traditional approach to pandemics was, so I knew what the original plan was likely to be. And I realised how transmissible the virus was, and quickly found the right experts to listen to. This made it possible for even a fast-moving pandemic to appear to be unfolding in a predictable, slow-motion way from my vantage point. But by mid-March it was clear that even the UK establishment could not stick with plan A, and at that point all bets were off as far as I was concerned, we were into uncharted territory (or at least uncharted in modern times in the west).
Some things are still predictable in this strange new world, very much including the media getting bored and moving to the 'whats the next step, the exit strategy and timing?'. And some bits of detail they are rehashing comes from earlier plans and earlier narratives. There are a bunch of reasons why 2nd waves in general may be mentioned in regards to epidemics and pandemics. And there were a bunch of different reasons why the spectre of a 2nd wave came up in the context of earlier versions of the plan too - including when the likes of Imperial College were modelling various sorts of measures, what happens when you lift them, and the idea of switching a bunch of them on and off in response to the number of intensive care patients.
Right now in the world of the press I see that different cabinet ministers are being described in terms of whether they want to end lockdown quickly. And part of the Johnson political response to various recent articles criticising Johnsons first months of pandemic 'leadership' at the weekend seems to involve letting it be known that 'he fears a 2nd wave and will not end lockdown'. Well no shit. Hell if we ended it as early as some in the press quack on about then the results wouldnt even count as a 2nd wave, they would more likely be a 2nd peak of the first wave because we wouldnt even have got down to a level that suggested the end of the first wave before things went back up again. So it would be more tempting to call it a spike than a 2nd wave. I think I heard this spike language used on the BBC on Monday when they were discussing some countries that are starting to relax certain very specific things, and what people are watching for nervously as a result.
But beyond the press talk, it will be rare to find me considering a 2nd wave at the moment because I mostly believe in seeing the first wave fall considerably first, and there is no reason for me to go on about a second wave unless we somehow tried to go back to 'the old normal', or if the 2nd wave we were talking about was much smaller than the first. In various countries around the world some leaders have spoken about a new normal to try to reach after lockdown is lifted, and this is more uncharted territory where few assumptions are safe right now. So I dont really understand your stance in some ways.
Specifically the 'deaths will continue at a high rate' thing you said. One of the bigger reasons I take things one week at a time and dont want to look much beyond the first wave yet is because there are all sorts of options which start to become available once the rate of death dwindles to a rather low level compared to what it has been in recent weeks. Its not supposed to remain anything like a high, constant rate, even if there will be weeks where the reduction in death rate may seem painfully slow as we watch the numbers day by day. Yes the concept of a plateau is often mentioned, but this isnt supposed to last for a very long time either.
I dont utterly rule out having reasons to speak of other waves eventually, perhaps as a result of bad human decisions, perhaps as a result of certain seasons. But who knows what else we will have learnt or come to terms with by then. I suppose there is a quite dull template in my mind for the rest of the year and beyond, but I dont believe in dwelling on it now because the chances are at least one major variable will be different from my present understanding by then, and so the template will be invalid. But even if the reality ends up fitting the template, some of the standard equations the powers that be use have been changed. I am likely to speak more about one particular aspect of that, involving numbers of deaths placed in a number of historical and seasonal contexts, when the latest ONS figures come out on Tuesday.
