1/ Yep, the early/hard lockdown countries are at the leading edge of their second wave: Spain with 78 deaths today (equivalent of 550 in the US) and 9,000 cases (63,000 in US). The question is how many deaths they’ll see this time.

2/ Based on non-lockdown localities like Sweden and Arizona, the best guess is that in advanced countries the virus burns out naturally after 500-700 deaths per million (with variation for age of population, comorbidities, and quality of care - i.e. Switzerland was very low)...

3/ However, hard lockdowns appear iatrogenic unless they are imposed before ANY community transmission occurs; they cause panic and health system strain; and in conjunction with population density and nursing home collapse they can cause severe short-term spikes...

4/ This led to death rates as high as 2,500 per million in New York City (which looks to have reached immunity) and 1,300 in Madrid (which does not).

The question is to what extent hard/early lockdown states get "credit" for those deaths now as the second wave begins...

5/ That's a biological question. Another issue is how well they can protect their vulnerable elderly - that's a health system question. I am somewhat optimistic that the answers to both will be favorable and Spain will not need anything like 500 per MM more deaths (22,000)...

6/ Before this wave burns out on its own, likely sometime in early October. But no one knows for sure, and anyone who says so is not telling the truth.