As we approach the end of the year, Europe is faced with a second wave of coronavirus,

with many states going back into lockdown.

The situation seems to reflect what happened in March when COVID-19 first appeared in Europe, and governments took

drastic measures to keep their healthcare systems running. However, some things have changed

since the first wave, among them the readiness of healthcare systems and industry. Welcome

to Metac-on-Air. I'm Gianluca Peinetti. And today we will talk about this and about the new challenges that this second wave brings along with METEC Europe's director for international affairs,

Jesus Rueda Rodriguez. Welcome back, Jesus.

Thank you, John Luca.

So, Jesus, I guess we can start with the first question and the most important question.

What has changed since March?

What is different in this second wave?

Well, there are a number of things that are having a big impact on the second wave

that are different from the first one.

One of the things that we are seeing is the fact that the profile of the people getting

infected is a little bit different.

The first wave was very focused on the elderly population, in particular nursing homes

and so on.

These are now much better prepared

and so we see a lot less cases there and a lot more within the younger population.

So we're actually seeing a much higher caseload in some cases as compared to the first wave.

And we're actually seeing that it's not just the nursing homes, but the healthcare systems overall are better prepared for this.

I mean, it's been now 10 months since COVID-19 emerged as a global pandemic,

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