Next 3 months of COVID-19 outbreak will be ‘terribly painful,’ Dr. Fauci says.

Dr. Anthony Fauci had a dire prediction this week about the surging second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

“December, January, and early February are going to be terribly painful months,” Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told the New York Times.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy had a similarly grim view, even amid news that multiple vaccines appear to be effective and could be ready for distribution soon.

“This is gonna get ugly for the next two or three months,” Murphy said during a virtual news conference Thursday. “The vaccine developments are real. That’s the good news. The bad news is they’re not gonna be here tomorrow.”

So what does this mean for the Garden State?

NJ Advance Media spoke to experts about what New Jersey residents can expect from the second wave, especially as the holidays arrive — and what that means for the economy.

SECOND-WAVE SURGE

New Jersey, a densely populated state of 9 million people, was an early epicenter of the pandemic but saw numbers drop and stabilize over the summer. New cases, though, have sharply increased in recent weeks. The state’s latest seven-day average for new positive tests is 3,892, up 278% from a month ago and higher than the virus’ first wave in the spring.

It’s difficult to compare the initial outbreak to the second wave because the state was conducting far fewer tests in March and April. So far, daily deaths and hospitalizations are still far below their peak in April, when there were more than 8,000 patients and officials were announcing hundreds of deaths a day.

But the latest numbers are all trending in the wrong direction.

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Hospitalizations have more than tripled over the last month to 2,505 as of Thursday night, and the state’s 71 acute-care hospitals are currently two-thirds full, according to the New Jersey Hospital Association. Daily deaths, positivity rate, and transmission rate have all been rising.

“There is the potential for us to get to a point that looks very similar to the beginning of the pandemic,” said Perry Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health. “The patterns are beginning to align with the beginning, and that is troubling.”

SECOND-WAVE PEAK

The extent of the second wave depends largely on human behavior, which can be difficult to forecast, officials and experts say.

New Jersey could see the next peak at the end of the year — right around Christmas — and with numbers that don’t approach what we saw in the spring, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said this week. But that’s only if enough residents comply with safety guidelines and restrictions, such as wearing masks and social distancing.

If not, Persichilli said, this wave could be worse.

Murphy said models show there could be between 8,000 and 10,000 cases and more than 100 deaths a day if people maintain their “current behavior.”

The governor has blamed the upticks on “pandemic fatigue” and people “letting their hair down” in their homes and other private settings as more activity moves indoors because of the colder weather.

“We are pleading with people to not let their…