Are we heading for a second peak?

Are we going to see a dreaded second spike in coronavirus cases? The question has a new poignancy after a week of mass protests where all pretence at social distancing seems to have gone out of the window. Life is getting back to normal, employment is sharply on the rise again and markets are soaring. Most notably of all, the distressing scenes in New York hospitals have ended as the virus appears in sharp decline there.

Nationally, across the US it is possible to detect a downwards trend in the number of new Covid-19 cases and deaths. The epidemic appears to have peaked in early April and tailed off since then – just as it has in Europe. But that isn’t the whole story. Drill down state by state and there is a very mixed picture. Study the graphs which the Washington Post has helpfully put online and you can put states into three distinct groups.