As multiple states are seeing a spike in coronavirus cases in the past few days, we’re left wondering if that second wave that health experts have predicted for the fall, has come early.
North Dakota’s Chief Health Strategist Dr. Joshua Wynne says he’s not sure you can call it a second wave because we’re still in the first one.
He says as some of the biggest hotspots, like New York, continue to trend down in case numbers, other cities and states are becoming the focus of attention. Dr. Wynne says soon, health experts should know if relaxing physical distancing guidelines and not taking mask-wearing seriously enough across the country, has to do with some of the spikes.
But, he says a few days of increased cases is not enough to report a trend.
“North Dakota is doing well. ‘Knock on wood.’ But things could change, and we saw how quickly it changed in the state of New York. In Wuhan, it may have started with a single individual, one person. So things can change rapidly, and the important thing is that we’ve learned something so the state can react rapidly if it needs to,” Dr. Wynne explained.
Dr. Wynne says that a second wave of cases later in the year is not actually inevitable here in North Dakota. He says it’s definitely a concern, but he and other state health experts are doing everything they can to prevent it.
