Did protests fuel COVID-19 cases? Are we already in a second wave? Your coronavirus questions, answered

It’s been six months since doctors first discovered the coronavirus and the illness it causes, COVID-19.

Since then, the virus has sickened millions of people worldwide, shuttering businesses and tanking economies with no clear end in sight. The United States has seen more than 2 million cases and more than 100,00 deaths.

As cases level and subside in some places and rise in others, the country is beginning a summer reopening. At the same time, nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd demanding racial justice have brought many Americans out of their homes and onto the nation’s streets.

As more and more people begin moving around, many have renewed questions about SARS-CoV-2:

Will there be a second wave of coronavirus cases? What states are experiencing surges? And when will it be safe to hug my loved ones again?

Here are answers to some of key coronavirus questions.

Are increasing cases in areas of the U.S. part of the ‘second wave’?

This question assumes that the first wave is over. Data suggests that in the U.S. the first wave hasn’t ended, it’s just fluctuated since early April – with an average of 20,000 new confirmed cases every day, as this graph posted to Twitter by Dr. James Hamblin shows. About 1,000 Americans continue to die every day. 

“The pandemic isn’t like everyone in the U.S. is on one single shore experiencing a single tsunami wave followed by another one,” said Dr. Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases, also at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The pandemic is made up of many local epidemics, each influenced by local mitigation efforts.”

The virus will continue to spread, he added, as long as there are susceptible people. An estimated 60-70% of the population needs to have become infected and developed immunity to the virus to prevent its spread. New York City, the heaviest hit area of the country, has reached an infection rate of just under 20%.

Experts who track diseases have been making an informal distinction between a “second peak” and a “second wave.”

“We expect there to be second (and third and fourth) peaks in places where physical distancing restrictions are relaxed,” said Stephen Kissler, a mathematician and postdoctoral research fellow in Grad’s lab. “Tightening up restrictions will likely reduce cases again, and then loosening them can make them rise again … basically, as our behavior changes and the epidemic sweeps around the country, we can expect to see multiple peaks of infection.”

A second wave, he said, “usually refers to a major resurgence of cases in the autumn that could strike all parts of the country more or less simultaneously, since viral respiratory pathogens are generally more transmissible in the autumn and winter.” That was the pattern, he said, for flu pandemics in 1918 and 2009. “Transmission remained relatively well under control over the summer, but spiked again in September/October.”

More: US coronavirus map: Tracking the outbreak

This seasonal pattern is what worries Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Cases of the common cold, which can also be caused by a coronavirus, typically dip this time of year.

“Right now, June, July and August, should be the absolute minimum in terms of when seasonal coronaviruses is usually seen,” he said. 

That’s why he’s so concerned that cases are remaining high. If this continues, he said, “we might see a massive burst of cases into the fall. That’s a scary thought.”

Did governors in different states cause the current increases?

While the federal government has attempted to provide guidelines to states throughout the pandemic, the Trump administration largely gave governors authority to decide when and how to reopen.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force issued a three-phase plan aimed at helping states determine when to ease restrictions and allow