As COVID rates rise in Europe and Asia, how worried should Americans be about another wave?

• We're in a "messy" part of the pandemic, according to infectious disease experts.
• Trends in other countries and in our own wastewater offer clues on if another COVID surge is on the way.
• Experts say it may be politically and socially impossible to get ahead of another surge.

Five times in the last two years coronavirus cases spiked in Europe a few weeks before they climbed in the United States.

Now, cases are rising again in at least a dozen European countries from Finland to Greece. And they're skyrocketing in South Korea, Hong Kong and parts of mainland China.

Experts here worry some of these countries may be predicting our future.