This week I heard a discussion of the two-month cycle that COVID-19 seems to follow.

Trying to make sense of COVID’s mysterious 2-month cycle

The reasons remain somewhat unclear, and there is no guarantee that the decline in caseloads will continue. But the turnaround is now large enough — and been going on long enough — to deserve attention.

The number of new daily cases in the United States has fallen 35% since Sept. 1. Worldwide, cases have also dropped more than 30% since late August. “This is as good as the world has looked in many months,” Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Research wrote last week.

The most encouraging news is that the most serious forms of COVID are also declining. The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID has fallen about 25% since Sept. 1. Daily deaths — which typically change direction a few weeks after cases and hospitalizations — have fallen 10% since Sept. 20. It is the first sustained decline in deaths since early summer.

If we're smart we'll be ready for the next cycle. It sounds like there will finally be a supply of rapid COVID tests available in early December (the FDA was initially more interested in a test that needed a doctor's office and 24 hours for the result). I read about people in Europe offering to ship their inexpensive and 98% accurate tests to friends here in the US.