A second wave? Perhaps, but deaths are still down

‘Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening in Europe,’ the Prime Minister tells us. ‘Among some of our European friends, I’m afraid you are starting to see, in some places, the signs of a second wave of the pandemic.’ 

Really? It rather depends on what graph you’re looking at, and over which period. On Saturday, the government consigned Spain to the sin bin – with quarantine for anyone travelling from there to Britain – on the grounds that there has been an uptick in recorded cases. Sure, the number of confirmed cases has risen in the weeks since late June, and – at around 2,000 a day – is running at about a quarter the level it was in at the peak in April. But look at the graph of deaths in Spain and it tells a completely different story. 

Deaths have fallen away to virtually zero.