Five scientists tell us what happens next with the covid-19 pandemic

By Clare Wilson

David Hunter, professor of epidemiology and medicine, University of Oxford, UK

There is a lot of discussion about a second wave, and when is a wave a wave, or will it be a ripple. Or some people suggest that a better analogy is tides. I sincerely hope there won’t be another pandemic like in March-April, that it would be much more attenuated. I suspect it will be, because we’ve got a lot of things in place: a better-educated population, social distancing, handwashing and mask-wearing.

That should mean that the epidemic curve is attenuated. If we can, as …