Is a Fifth Wave Coming? Ahead of Holidays, COVID-19 Cases Are Still Below 2020 Levels—For Now　　　　USでは第5波の発生か？

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Is a Fifth Wave Coming? Ahead of Holidays, COVID-19 Cases Are Still Below 2020 Levels—For Now
TIME / BY CHRIS WILSON / NOVEMBER 12, 2021 1:04 PM EST

現在、日本においては、 COVID-19の感染状況は沈静化しているが、USでは、第5波の到来を予感させる感染状況が展開されている。日本も、今後、益々、国内はもとより、海外との交流も拡大基調にある中、感染状況の常時把握と早期対応が現政権に求められる。

New confirmed cases of COVID-19 are once again rising across a broad region of the United States in what could be an early indication of a fifth wave of infections and related deaths. The timing is particularly inopportune (都合の悪い、時機を失した、折の悪い、あいにくの/inɑ̀pərtúːn), as millions of Americans prepare to gather for Thanksgiving. While the insurgent (反乱［暴動］の/insə́ːrdʒənt) virus never strikes everywhere at once, (but) the holidays do (strike).

Like the early days of the second, third and fourth waves, the abrupt flatlining (〔上下変動せずに〕水平になる/flǽtlàin) of a precipitous (急激な、突然の/prisípətəs) decline in cases is not a good omen (前兆、予知、予感、予言/óumən) when it lasts more than a week. In five of the past seven days, the weekly rolling average of new cases, which is reasonably resistant to daily fluctuations in reporting (日々の症例数をweekly rolling averageで算出することにより日々の症例数の変動をなだらかにさせる), has been higher than the day before.

This trademark [flattening of the curve after an extended decline in the pandemic’s perpetual (終わりがない、絶え間ない/pərpétʃuəl) two-month cycle] typically foretells (〔～の〕前兆となる/fɔrtél) a spike. The unwelcome reversal (反転/rivə́ːrsəl) comes just 16 days after cases dipped below the level we saw at this time last year, when the pandemic’s devastating third wave was already well on its way. Deaths, meanwhile—which typically lag about two weeks behind cases—remain slightly above their 2020 year-over-year counterparts.

The strongest hope that this could be a false alarm—and as always, I do hope I’m wrong—is that the current clip (素早い動き、早足) could be the last gasp (息切れ) of the fourth wave, not the introduction of the next one. Over the summer, cases blossomed across both the South and Upper Northwest, often leading to infections and mortalities that met or outstripped January’s catastrophic figures. Every state that’s currently experiencing rising cases, meanwhile, is still posting (掲載する) figures (例数) below the record levels last winter—or, in the case of New Hampshire and Vermont, reached a new all-time high in the past week. The ever undulating (波のようにうねる、波のように動く、波打つ、揺れる/ʌ́ndʒəlèit) COVID-19 Belt currently stretches from Maine to Minnesota and all the way to Arizona, while regions that posted record figures in August and September remain comparatively dormant (休眠中の、休止状態の、不活発な/dɔ́rmənt).

2021 wasn’t supposed to look like this. When the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine first rolled out in the U.S. on Dec. 14, it promised a foreseeable end to what already felt like eternal torpor (休眠/tɔ́rpər). That hope predated (～より前から存在する、～以前に遡る/priːdéit) the rise of the Delta variant, but it was also predicated (〔あるものの属性などを〕叙述する、断定する/prédikèit) on two assumptions: that a supermajority of adults would get vaccinated as soon as possible, and that we could endure a shuttered (閉鎖された) existence just long enough for that to happen.

The fast mutation of the novel virus could not have been prevented, and vaccine hesitancy was arguably inevitable. As for the reflexive (再帰の、反射的な/rifléksiv) advance and retreat of reopening, I would hazard a guess (推量をする、見当をつける) that the May 13 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention edict (命令、指示/íːdikt) that freed the fully vaccinated from wearing masks in many scenarios will not be looked upon kindly by the history books (将来的に振り返ると、CDCの上記の指示は不適切であった).

Those books cannot be written until the U.S. and world kick the two-month cycle. This doesn’t mean total hermitage (隠者［世捨て人］の生活/hə́ːmitidʒ) at a time when the economy is desperately in need of participation. It does mean that safety protocols will need to revert to (～に戻る) those utilized in the earlier days of the pandemic—for as long as the data (感染データ) are anywhere nearly as bad as or worse than they were a year ago.