The United States has officially surpassed the two million cases of COVID-19, becoming the country with the highest rate of infection, closely followed by Brazil (787,489) and Russia (502,436).

While new cases have declined in places like Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Washington, the Washington Post reported, several states have recorded the highest infection rates in the so-called "first wave.”

However, in a country where the decision whether or not to quarantine has been left to state governments, and where the federal government has insisted on belittling the impact of the virus, not offering the necessary support and calling the issue "a hoax," talk of a second wave without having been able to control the pandemic is a sad irony.

States such as Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah have seen a significant increase in their cases since Memorial Day when many "began to ease restrictions," the Post explains.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have assured that "the U.S. economy will not close down again.

"We can't shut down the economy again. I think we've learned that if you shut down the economy, you're going to create more damage and not just economic damage, but there are other areas," Mnuchin said during an appearance on CNBC, calling President Donald Trump's initial decision "very prudent" but saying "we've learned a lot" since then.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, warned Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic "is far from over," according to The Guardian.

Fauci has called COVID-19 "his worst nightmare.”

“In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world,” Fauci said, speaking to executives at a conference of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. “And it isn’t over yet.”

“That’s millions and millions of infections worldwide. And it isn’t over yet. And it’s condensed in a very, very small time frame,” said Fauci.

In a videotaped discussion, Fauci said he knew that an outbreak like this could happen, but was surprised at how quickly it "took hold of the planet.”

 Fauci attributed the rapid spread to the contagious nature of the virus and the extensive worldwide travel of infected people.

The coronavirus has just "taken over the planet," he said.

Last Sunday alone, 136,000 new infections were reported, "the largest single-day increase since the beginning of the pandemic," Adam Taylor explained in his column for the Post.

“By no means is this over,” Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s executive director, said Wednesday. “If we look at the numbers over the last number of weeks, this pandemic is still evolving. It is still growing in many parts of the world.”

And while demonstrators on the streets have tried to exercise some caution, experts expect a second wave of contagion in the coming months.

“It doesn’t help to say police violence doesn’t matter,” Gregg Gonsalves, a professor of epidemiology at Yale, told New York Magazine. “The health disparities that have killed tens of thousands of people over a half a century don’t matter. We are saying we understand it matters; they’re public-health issues too.”

But almost all experts acknowledge that mass protests are a risk — just as the reopening of the economy seen in many nations around the world, including the United States, carries risks. “The facts suggest that the U.S. is not going to beat the coronavirus,” the Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer wrote. “Collectively, we slowly seem to be giving up.”