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Second wave of covid-19 could come if measures are not followed 1:00
(CNN Spanish) - After weeks in quarantine, several countries successfully go through reopening phases.
However, some cities, such as Beijing, or states, such as Florida and Texas in the United States, have reported a rebound in confirmed cases of coronavirus. How can we avoid a second wave of infections? And will it be worse than the first one?
You can listen to this episode on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform or read the transcript below.
Hello, I am Dr. Elmer Huerta and this is your daily dose of information about the new coronavirus, information that we hope will be useful to take care of your health and that of your family. Today we will see a topic that has been talked about a lot in recent weeks: the second wave of infections with the new coronavirus.
But before we remember some important concepts.
The first is that humanity faces a new type of virus, against which no one has any defense. That means that we are all susceptible to infection.
The second is that -in the absence of effective drugs and vaccines- the most important measures to control the infection are containment -which includes social distancing through quarantine and the use of masks by the population- and mitigation -which consists of the search and isolation of positive cases and their contacts-.
The third is that quarantines are drastic measures that inflict serious damage to the economies of countries and people, which is why the provisions for opening or leaving quarantine in society are very important.
That said, it is relevant to know that many countries have already successfully passed containment and mitigation measures, having controlled the first wave of the pandemic in their territories. Some examples are China, South Korea, Germany, New Zealand, Italy and Spain, among others. These countries have then controlled the first wave of infection and are in the process of reopening.
The problem is that, once the initial infection is controlled, and society reopens to try to return to normal, there is always the opportunity for new outbreaks to appear. That is the poorly defined concept of what is called a second wave, that is, a flare-up of the infection that becomes as great or greater than the first.
This situation occurred in Singapore, a country that had been considered an example of success in controlling the epidemic. After having controlled it and reopened its economy, it had a severe outbreak caused by the thousands of migrant workers who brought the virus with them, and which the authorities had to contain with energy.
Something similar also happened in Texas, Florida and California, which saw a resurgence in the number of cases and hospitalizations when society's containment measures began to be relaxed.
Likewise, it was recently announced that a new outbreak has occurred in Beijing and 79 cases have been infected locally until Monday, June 15, after two months of not finding any positive. Chinese authorities rushed to contain the outbreak, carrying out selective quarantines and aggressive case detection and follow-up on their contacts.
We can say then that for a severe regrowth or a second wave of infection to occur, a fundamental requirement must be met: that the infection has been completely controlled the first time. Otherwise, it is not possible to speak of regrowth or second wave, but of persistence of the infection, that is, it was never controlled.
That is why when a country comes to completely control the infection, it must wait and always be prepared to have a new outbreak, for which it must have a solid surveillance system for new cases, which allows identifying them and determining the source of origin.
Outbreaks are thought to be the consequence of reopening the company very soon after quarantine. As cases have not been fully controlled, they may resurface. At other times, importing new cases may explain the outbreaks.
The way to avoid them is - according to the World Health Organization - to open society slowly and in well-calculated stages, maintaining a very active surveillance system of cases and their contacts.
Thus, until an effective drug or vaccine is found and available to more than two thirds of humanity, countries will have to develop robust public health and surveillance systems, always living with the idea that a second wave may be inevitable.
Send me your questions on Twitter, we will try to answer them in our next episodes. You can find me at @DrHuerta.
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If you have any questions, you can send them to Dr. Elmer Huerta on Twitter. You can also go to CNNE.com/coronaviruspodcast for all the episodes of our podcast “Coronavirus: Reality vs. fiction".