The so-called "experts" are "perplexed" as to the behavior of this virus, are finding it confusing, and can't figure out what's next for this pathogen.
The problem with these "experts" are they are looking at the whole phenomena from a scientific point of view. They are viewing this coronavirus and its behavior as they would an influenza virus, and through a historic lens. This is wrongheaded and unimaginative.
For me, it's so obvious, and has been since day 1: This is math. Exponential growth. And after exhausting all potential bodies for infection, extremely steep declines of virus in the population. It's all about bell curves, a major tenet in college statistical courses. The graph above betrays beautiful bell curves in which one can basically predict when the next surge will be.
The plateauing may very well be the start to the surge. I can virtually guarantee that we are gonna surge that might take us to the stratosphere and in Winter Season, with thanksgiving travel giving that a boost as well. I'll check this thread back in four weeks to see how the previous four weeks went. Hopefully well.
While it's impossible to figure out where any virus heads because they mutate, I wouldn't say scientists are perplexed at all. COVID is much more predictable than other types of viruses. They most certainly aren't viewing COVID as influenza, because if they were research would have focused on treatment other than vaccines. RNA polymerases generally exhibit low fidelity compared to DNA polymerases, and both COVID and influenza are RNA viruses so you would expect high mutation rates. COVID is different because it has a higher fidelity due to the presence of a proofreading mechanisms in it's RNAp. The reason for this is coronaviruses have really big genomes compared to other viruses, so this type of mechanism is a necessity. Think of it like this - you probably don't need to proofread a short email for errors because there isn't much to mess up. A full-page email would be more likely to have errors, so you probably would want to look it over.
Because coronaviruses have higher fidelity than influenza viruses, mutation rates are comparably lower. Very low fidelities in influenza viruses make their actions very hard to predict, which is why vaccines are worthless a year after they are given. This is also the very reason it's infinitely more important for people to get a COVID jab compared to a flu shot. Because they have volatile mutations flu vaccines simply aren't that effective, while the predictability of COVID means that vaccines will have relatively longer-lasting protection. If they were treating COVID like influenza, the focus would be on treatments as it's near impossible to stop the spread of influenza. You make a good observation about statistical courses because those neat predictable curves you see is a result of COVID
being so predictable. It's a completely different thing than a bell curve of course because growth curves and distribution curves are very different things, but pretty much every expert recognizes this, even if they differ on pathways for treatment. It most certainly
isn't math though, as growth in math is due to a predictable function - the equation never changes. While COVID might seem that way because it is more predictable, it isn't completely predictable, which is why it's still presenting a challenge.
This is why the vast majority of scientists and experts have been preaching vaccinations since they came out, and they knew exactly what would happen if rates weren't high. They predicted correctly that a large peak would happen in winter when people moved more indoors and had more gatherings. They also predicted a 3rd wave based on poor vaccination rates, with the majority of cases among the unvaccinated.
The biggest problem today is that people want to do their own research, but lack the tools to do so. They get their information from blogs, news stations, and what outlets say the CDC is saying because they need someone to translate what a journal article is saying. Every time I read someone say "well I did my research on COVID" I chuckle inside because 95% of them aren't doing research at all, but reading other people's interpretations. It is impossible for data to be biased, it's just numbers. What can be biased is methodology and interpretation, and 95% of Americans couldn't even read and understand a typical journal article, let alone figure out which parts of it have weak design. It's like the Aaron Rodgers thing. I don't know him personally but I would guess that all that time spent on the football field as a youth impacted his study time and he's really not reading research. He's listening to what talking heads are stating the research says and thinking that is due diligence. Through confirmation bias the internet has the powerful ability to make one feel smart, which is why it is so very dangerous in a lot of ways.
We will see another surge, it's only a question of how bad. It won't be as bad as last winter, simply because we have a significantly vaccinated population, but indications are that it is not going to go well at all, particularly among the unvaccinated.
