Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz has a routine when she gets into a taxi: she makes sure the driver is wearing a mask, rolls down the windows, then often talks to the driver about the risks of airborne transmission of COVID-19 and then gives him a KN95 mask, because most drivers don’t know about the airborne risks of the disease, she says. It’s one way she helps spread the word that the dangers inherent in this pandemic aren’t over, especially as the temperatures fall and case counts climb.

Gasperowicz has been modelling the pandemic since its start, using the skills she developed as a developmental biologist at the University of Calgary to track the possible and probable trajectories of wave after wave of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. And right now, she’s worried about what she’s seeing in the data. When asked to rate the likelihood of a fifth wave hitting Canada this winter, she pauses, then says it’s seven or eight out of 10, depending on how governments react to changing circumstances on the ground.

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