From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is the Daily.

Today,

an update on the state of the coronavirus in the US.

I check back in with Times Science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr.

It's Wednesday, October 7.

Donald, you recently sent me an email that pretty much stopped me in my tracks because in it, you said that you were optimistic about the course of the pandemic.

And that is not a word that I associate with either you or the pandemic and it immediately made me think that we needed to talk.

Okay. I can explain.

I am short term right now, fall and winter pessimistic.

I think things are going to get worse.

But since I've been saying since April or so that this epidemic is not going to be over by Easter, this epidemic is not going to be over by fall.

And that, you know, the record for making a vaccine is four years.

I now have new optimism about how fast I expect vaccines and other interventions to get here and how quickly that will bring the pandemic to an end in the United States.

So it sounds like you have a qualified long term optimism.

And I want to get to that.

But for now, let's explore your shorter term pessimism by understanding where we are right now in the pandemic starting with the US.

What's happened in the US is really in some ways one giant wave with geographical distinction in the spring.

Northeast was hit very hard New York City, Boston, some of the other cities, but it was a very concentrated, very intense epidemic.

Then there was the big summer wave, which began mostly in the south that was the southern states.

Meanwhile, you've always had a sort of smoldering thing going on in California, particularly but also in Oregon and Washington.

The third part of this big, if you like, first wave is now hitting the Midwest, and especially the upper Midwest, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.

And so now they're suffering through it.

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