As the world is witnessing a massive surge in COVID-19 cases, instead of terming it as a "second wave," the World Health Organization has chosen to describe it as "one big wave" that is bound to get worse further, irrespective of the season.
On Tuesday, July 28, WHO official Dr. Margaret Harris said in a briefing that the world is still in the first wave and "It's going to be one big wave. It's going to go up and down a bit. The best thing is to flatten it and turn it into just something lapping at your feet." However, it remains a billion dollar question now.
She said people are still thinking about seasons but at this time "What we all need to get our heads around is this is a new virus and...this one is behaving differently. Summer is a problem. This virus likes all weather."
So, no matter what people assume or claim to know, it is very clear that the virus doesn't care which season it is as in India, where authorities recorded over 1,531,000 COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, July 29, the surge came during summer.
It Is Beyond Human Control
China recently reported the biggest spike in Coronavirus cases since the end of the Wuhan outbreak, in its western and northeastern regions, mostly in Xinjiang, where China's treatment of local Muslim Uighur population has repeatedly come under criticism.
Even Hong Kong Chief executive Carrie Lam on Wednesday said that administrative region on the verge of a "large-scale" outbreak that could collapse hospitals. After the spike in new Coronavirus cases in the city, the authorities have implemented new measures to stop the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile, South Korea reported a surge in COVID-19 cases again. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that the additional figures took the country's total to 14,251 with 300 deaths.
Trump's Famous Tweet
The belief that the virus would disappear by summer was first touted by U.S. President Donald Trump, who tweeted in the early months of the pandemic that virus would vanish during the warmer weather. But the world has already noticed that the SARS-CoV-2 can survive in a warmer climate.
Even the National Academy of Sciences committee had sent a letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, explaining that there is no evidence to prove that the virus will stop spreading in the warmer months.
The WHO official Harris expressed her concern about the Coronavirus coinciding with the normal flu season during the winter season. Once the flu season begins knocking the door, people in the northern hemisphere will get a first look at what level the Coronavirus pandemic would peak.
Harris has advised people to seek flu vaccines and said, "If you have an increase in a respiratory illness when you already have a very high burden of respiratory illness, that puts even more pressure on the health system."
WHO Concerns for Africa
Recently WHO has warned that Africa might be headed for a much larger Coronavirus outbreak than current numbers have suggested. Michael Ryan, who leads the WHO's emergency program said, "I am very concerned right now that we are beginning to see an acceleration of [the] disease in Africa."
Even though the total number of COVID-19 cases in Africa accounts for only a small proportion of total global cases, the acceleration in rates of Coronavirus infection in some African countries has triggered concerns among the health authorities in the continent, where many people don't even believe in the pandemic, brushing it aside as unreal and never existed in Africa.
In a recent report by BBC, medical staff at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital explained their concerns. Their main worry is that the local understanding of the COVID-19 can sabotage the entire plan to slow down the spread of the virus.
