Commentary: Is this fall downturn the end of COVID-19? Why we don’t know for sure

The Greek historian Herodotus lived through the plague of Athens, one of the world’s first great pandemics. He wrote, “Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.” So it is with COVID-19. In the U.S., we are currently in the middle of an autumn downturn in COVID-19 cases, and no one can say whether this will be the end. It is clear, however, that the U.S. is repeating a mystifying cycle of case rise and fall that has been seen in other countries. For reasons unknown, cases surge for six to 10 weeks and then fall predictably in a similar fashion for at least an equal period. The curr...