A peculiarity regarding the coronavirus curve

Let's do an exercise. Here are a few epidemiological curves for the SARS-CoV2 virus for a few select countries:

(and I use SARS-CoV2 instead of COVID-19 because COVID-19 is the disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus. You do not get infected (or test positive) for the disease, you test positive for the virus which, in turn, can give you the disease)

Canada Coronavirus: 415,182 Cases and 12,665 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

United States Coronavirus: 15,159,529 Cases and 288,906 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

Italy Coronavirus: 1,728,878 Cases and 60,078 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

Russia Coronavirus: 2,460,770 Cases and 43,141 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

France Coronavirus: 2,292,497 Cases and 55,155 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

United Kingdom Coronavirus: 1,723,242 Cases and 61,245 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

Germany Coronavirus: 1,184,845 Cases and 19,159 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

Sweden Coronavirus: 278,912 Cases and 7,067 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

You can repeat the same exercise with any country or territory in the northern latitudes (think north of the 40th parallel, where New York City is) and add them to this list.

Notice anything?

What I noticed is that the curve in each country is essentially the same- a rise in cases in March, a peak in April, a lull over the summer months, and a second wave beginning in August that is still continuing.

Yes, the United States has a bit of a bulge during the summer months, but remember that this bulge is small and they have a lot of territory that does not have the cold winters that Canada or Russia would experience.

Why do I bring this up? Because for the past few months now as cases surge everywhere, our healthcare officials and government leaders have been beating the drum that the reason is because the public has gotten lax with following the coronavirus protocols, insisting that if we all did our part we'd curb the curve.

However, when I see curves like this and I see so many other places experiencing similar patterns, I just can't help but think something else is at play- and that our health officials have gotten their policies and messages horribly wrong.

Again.

I grant that if you were to look at the curves in places like India, Spain and Brazil you'd get different results. I don't know enough about those countries to know what's really going on there so I'm not going to speculate.

However, by looking at "winter" countries, it makes me wonder if the long discredited idea of "seasonality" really does have a role in contributing to the spread of SARS-CoV2. Yes the curves began in August, but August is when temperatures typically start to drop after hitting the highs earlier in the year, and the rise in cases seems to correspond with dropping temperatures.

Could cooler weather make the virus easier to spread? I'd say there's a chance that's happening. It could also be because of the weather variations our bodies are more likely to react much stronger to the virus during the summer than it does during winter, which is one reason why the common cold and the flu tend to be worse in the winter months.

It could also be cooler weather brings people indoors and, more importantly, inside our homes. When temperatures start warming up, we go outside and spend less time inside, which means the virus circulates less. The opposite happens when the temperatures start dropping. More crucially, when we spend more time indoors, the virus has a better chance of circulating and incubating, so it's possible that when we spend more time inside our houses- where we're not "following the rules"- we're incubating more of the virus and thus getting sicker.

It could also be tied to the decision to reopen the schools, which in many European and North American jurisdictions begin their classes in August. It is true that kids and teens aren't at risk for developing serious complications from contracting the virus, but, perhaps, they are acting as carriers who pick up the virus at school and then bring it home to their parents and grandparents who are at a greater risk of developing complications from SARS-CoV2.

Let's not forget that the kids are still packing their classrooms as of this writing, as during this second wave, schools have not been shut down- which may be making this second wave worse.

I don't know. I'm just speculating. There are people wiser than me on this subject who can clarify things and tell me more about the nuances that exist when fighting this virus.

However, I do bring this up because it's yet another reason why the policies our healthcare officials and government leaders are pursuing right now- like claiming the spread is "our personal responsibility" and employing "targeted measures" are just not working.

If they did work, then the numbers would ebb and flow, with numbers going down when "targeted measures" are applied and going back up when they are not.

Same thing with our "personal choices". You'd think that with cases going up, people would suddenly not be so relaxed about "following the rules" which should, in turn, be reflected in the numbers when they are not.

More to the point, if the "recommended guidelines" were indeed effective, then they would have a noticeable effect on the number of hospitalizations occurring because of the virus. Or, at the very least, employing them would not bring hospitalization numbers to the point where they're causing a healthcare crisis.

I mean, even if they do have an effect, does it matter if it's not achieving their goals?

Ultimately, though, what gets me about the "personal responsibility" argument- aside from the clear fact it's a deflection tactic employed by the government so that if things go south, the public is blaming each other and not the government for it (or so they think)- is the fact that so many places are experiencing the exact same situation.

You'd think with so many different countries in the world there would be many different responses to the virus, and different levels of uptake with regards to the recommendations and the seriousness afforded to those recommendations and towards the virus itself.

Meaning that the curves in Britain, in France, in Canada, in New York, etc. should all be different, because those places are not going to react to the virus the same way.

Yet here we are, with each country facing the same situation.

We're talking about hundreds of millions, if not billions of people. Are they all getting lax with the recommendations and guidelines, and are they all not taking this virus seriously?

Please. If you believe that, then I have oceanfront property in Saskatchewan to sell you.

Is "COVID fatigue" a thing? It's possible. However, I would suspect that would abate once the curve truly kicks in, because once the numbers start going up again more people would take it seriously- which should, in turn, curb the curve...but that didn't happen.

Let me be clear. I'm not a conspiracy theorist or an "anti-masker" and I do take the virus seriously. I also do my utmost to follow the guidelines and rules as best as I can.

I'm also not anti-science or an anti-vaxxer. I'll likely be eager to get the coronavirus vaccine the instant it's available to me.

That said, there's a religiousness that comes with listening to people we deem "health experts" as well as our health officials and our government and that's troubling. No matter how many PhDs someone has, they can still make faulty arguments and they can still be wrong- sometimes horribly so.

It shouldn't take someone with another PhD to call them out on it, especially when the evidence is staring you right in the face.

...and the evidence that the SARS-CoV2 recommendations and measures are just not working are staring us right in the face. There is no question about this.

Yes, you can give our health officials the benefit of the doubt back in March when things were just starting to get out of control.

...and you can also give them the benefit of the doubt given that there's still tons of research to do about SARS-CoV2.

...but I can only give them so much. Nine months into the pandemic and four months into a second wave- one our health officials and experts liked to consistently tell us was going to happen way back in March- we should at least have a better idea of what we're doing to curb the curve.

Or, at the very least, know enough to know when our strategies are not working.

Yet here we are, parroting the same things that were being parroted in the spring, still drilled into our heads as "the only way" out of this mess.

Only this time it's clear it's not working, and it's not working in so many different areas.

What's the definition of insanity again?

-DG