This was true right from the Black Death right up to the Spanish Flu
First, if you don't know about graphs, this is the terminology I use.
The horizontal axis (X) measures the wavelength in days which can be measured either peak to peak or trough to trough.
The vertical axis (Y) measures the amplitude which is the number of cases discovered each day. We do not know the true numbers of cases, because they are governed by the number of tests, the number of people who recovered and the efforts to minimise the number of cases.
The time taken to germinate is fourteen days, therefore I smoothed the curve by graphing the AVERAGE of the last fourteen results, each day.
My thoughts are as follows:
I have an X value smoothed by 14 points. The shape is identical to previous historic pandemics.
If you have a medical event, it will have to be a wave of infection and healing (or death). There is no time for a standard wave to form, and so the second wave is added on top of the first wave to form the largest wave. This is why it is so important to attack the pandemic as early as possible, so that the second wave is minimised.
Think of a pebble dropped into a pond each ripple gets smaller as its amplitude is spread over a wider circle.
I've calculated that REGARDLESS of what is done (the smooth amplitude wave will vary depending on what treatment is available) the time of variation (i.e. the wavelength) will remain constant at about four and a half weeks from trough to trough.
There should be a gently falling line along the top of the waves which will cut the X axis after the fifth wave at about mid-September this year. We shouldn't even think of crossing international boundaries until early August, mid September and the end of October, but not in between. "Normality" should return at Christmas.
So, sadly, it looks as though I shall miss the Fair, Abbey 900, and Florence, my favourite city. Perhaps 2022, but I shall be 76, buut at least I shall not die of the pestilence :)
