As countries decide when the right time is to reopen their economies, the main factor preventing them from doing so is the idea a second wave of coronavirus could hit their nation. This could overwhelm their health care system and potentially lead to another lockdown. So what is a so-called ‘second wave’ and how can countries protect themselves from it?
To understand how deadly a second wave can be, we have to go back in time 100 years. It’s March 1918, and a strange new disease is killing people in a US army base Kansas. Soon the virus spreads throughout Europe and the world as World War One rages on. However, for most people symptoms of a high fever and malaise last three days, and the virus only has a mortality rate similar to the seasonal flu. Over the summer, reported cases of the Spanish flu dropped, and people hoped it had run its course.
However, in late August 1918, a new, mutated strain of the virus started to spread. This could kill you within one day of getting symptoms. The mortality rate of the virus skyrocketed. In the month of October in the US alone, 195,000 people died from the disease. Millions more died within a short period. Historians and scientists today argue World War One was a major factor in spreading the disease, but also the lack of major public quarantines. By December the second wave was over. But deaths would not stop there, the next year a just as dangerous third wave would hit the world. Although millions still died in the third wave, with World War One over the disease found it less easy to spread, meaning the virus was less deadly. The Spanish Flu is thought to have killed between 20-50 million people worldwide.
Read more: UK coronavirus death toll passes 17,000 as 778 more die in England – in sharp rise on yesterday’s figure -
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