Just want to remind you that on August 31 I predicted that if we have another COVID wave, it would peak around New Year’s Day. This was based on nothing but looking at the graph of daily case counts and noticing that there’s a peak about every 4 months (120 days). We passed a minimum 3 weeks ago, and it seems like a 6th wave is indeed forming.
Why is this important? Mostly because I want to claim clairvoyance. But also because it says something about the underlying cause. There’s always some immediate reason: a new variant, vaccines losing effectiveness, the weather, holidays, etc. But the fact that it keeps happening every 120 days (+/- 3 weeks) says that there is a deeper cause.
When you get oscillations in a system, it means there is a negative feedback loop. I believe the primary cause of the 4-month cycle is human behavior. It goes like this: Numbers start ticking up. We do something about it. Numbers start going down. We relax and rejoice that it’s finally over. Numbers start going up again … ad infinitum.