Second wave
A critical few weeks lie ahead for Europe as the colder winter months approach.
A number of European countries have seen a huge surge in reported cases of COVID-19, but to date hospitals have not been overrun, and there have been relatively speaking very few deaths.
The recent surge in cases most notably includes France, where the second wave of cases has utterly dwarfed the initial phase of the epidemic.
France deaths have increased a little, but not nearly as much.
In Britain the deaths numbers have long been clouded by the murky confusion between deaths from COVID-19, and deaths where a positive COVID test has been established.
But by July and August the worst was clearly over, at least according to the NHS hospital data.
Similar patterns have apparently been playing out to date in Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and a range of other countries and global cities besides (e.g. New York, New Jersey, etc.).
What then, comes next?
All this presumably means one of two things.
Either there's a large number of deaths in the post, following on from the surge of cases, due to a lag effect.
Or the lockdown sceptics were right, and serious cases have followed a Gompertz curve, with the damage already having been done months ago, and immunity building up in much of the remainder of the population.
Let's hope it's the latter.
