COVID-19 Second Wave: Will Round Two of Pandemic be More Lethal? When Will It Begin? What Experts Say

New Delhi, April 25: Even as most parts of the world are bracing for the peak of current COVID-19 onslaught, global health bodies and experts have warned of a "lethal" second wave. The World Health Organisation (WHO) - the nodal body in charge of coordinating the global response to coronavirus - is also of the opinion that the virus may continue to assault in forms of epidemic or pandemic till a vaccine is developed. What Is Plasma Therapy? Can It Treat COVID-19? Who Can Donate Plasma in the Fight Against Coronavirus?

Before considering what the experts have opined on round two of the COVID-19 outbreak, the readers must be apprised of what is a "second wave". The term, in medical realm, refers to the resurgence of a viral disease after a brief lull in the number of new cases. The resurgence could be sparked by change in weather or mutation of the virus which caused the disease.

The influenza, which recurs as a seasonal flu each year and infects less than one percent of the global population, had in 1918 turned into a fatal pandemic after mutation of its virus led to a second wave of outbreak. The virus ended up claiming over 5,00,00,000 lives between January 1918 to December 1920.

In case of influenza, the second wave was triggered by a virus mutation along with the weather turning cold -- providing a conducive atmosphere for the virus to spread. According to a top United States health official, the second wave of coronavirus may hit the nation by Fall, when the country begins bracing for the colder months.

Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called on Americans to use the coming months to prepare -- and get their flu shots.

"There's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through," he was quoted as saying in an interview with the Washington Post published late Tuesday.

A similar note of warning was sounded by Dr. Gregory Poland, a Mayo Clinic COVID-19 expert. He claimed that influenza and COVID-19, timed together, may end up posing massive health challenges.

"This is an area where, as somebody who studies these viruses and as a vaccinologist, I have grave concerns. When you think about this COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., it started in mid to late February, so we were in fact past our influenza epidemic. It's unlikely that will happen this fall. Rather, we will have, in an overlapping fashion, influenza epidemics and COVID-19 recurrence occurring," the Mayo Clinic quoted him as saying.

China, the epicentre of coronavirus outbreak, is also apprehending a return of the virus onslaught by the winter months. Zhang Wenhong, who heads the Covid-19 clinical expert team in Shanghai, said the second wave of COVID-19 may begin in the nation by November.

Unlike others who have predicted the second round of pandemic to be more lethal, Wenhong claimed that it would not required the mass shutdowns as being currently witnessed all across the world.

Speaking during an online livestream broadcast by popular short-video platform Kuaishou, Zhang said China's experience with disease control means any resurgence in infections later this year will be manageable, and not require a repeat of the dramatic measures taken to curb the virus's initial spread.

The World Health Organisation, in a statement issued on Friday, said there is no evidence so far which suggests that those who have recovered from COVID-19 are now immune to the disease.

"Currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection," the WHO said, in apparent reaction to reports suggesting that those who have developed antibodies will not be infected by the SARS-nCoV-2019 virus again.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 25, 2020 06:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).