Second lockdown slower to yield results

Authorities appear guardedly confident that new coronavirus cases will start falling this week. Earlier, they had believed that the infection rate would already be on a downward slope, but these hopes were dashed. Now, the consensus is that such a drop will be apparent by the middle of the week, though there are also more pessimistic forecasts of a drop in the infection rate not occurring until later, necessitating an extension of the lockdown.

The second wave of the pandemic has stretched the national health system to its limits, with hospital beds filling rapidly. It has become clear that, in unofficial parlance, "November is not March," meaning that the conditions during the start of the first lockdown earlier in the year were different, and more favorable, as it is taking more time to flatten the infection curve. There are several factors that weigh in.

To begin...