COVID-19 vaccinations for young children now expected to start later this week, which in turn means less time for families of children entering the first two years of school.
While schools will still be open for children, and some parents are still allowed to drop off their children at school, a number of states still have delayed school openings due to the pandemic. Some schools are now already operating in online environment (like online virtual learning) where parents can pick up their children, while school buildings remain closed and parents have also limited interactions.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has so far been of a temporary nature, it’s the fear of a possible second wave, and a future shortage of medical supplies (which may prove more serious than the current shortage in face masks and hospital beds) that has led the public to rush into buying and using personal protective equipment.
The first wave (the coronavirus pandemic) has had a devastating impact on the world. The second wave (the second, much larger coronavirus pandemic) is only expected to hit in a couple of months’ time. While the two-year timeline is on the shorter side but still quite a ways away — the first wave of the pandemic was predicted to take at most 12 months to have a worldwide impact — we will all have to adjust to a future world that is different from the one we now live in.
The Second Wave: What Are We Seeing?
According to the World Health Organization, there’s a high level of uncertainty regarding the second wave of COVID-19. The virus was detected in China, and then spread to more than 100 countries around the world in a matter of weeks. While there is strong scientific consensus in the area of how COVID-19 is transmitted and how it behaves in its initial stages, there are still questions, especially for the most vulnerable people in the world. The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic is expected to be much more severe than the first, with a major impact on the lives of the most vulnerable. At this point, the most severely affected countries are in China, followed by Italy, South Korea, Spain, Iran, and the United States.
A significant part of the reason why the second wave is expected to be so severe is the fact that most hospital beds and ICU beds are not necessarily designed to deal with infections resulting from COVID-19, because