Coronavirus: Does The Sun And Warm Weather 'Kill' COVID-19?

 

There is a huge amount of misleading information circulating online about the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) - from dodgy health tips to speculation about government plans.

As the media has the duty to inform and educate, Allnews separates the wheat from the chaff.

It is claimed in some quarters that the warmer countries 'have not experienced Coronavirus outbreaks', and that the reason is that 'the sun and warm weather kills the virus before it can transmit'.

This claim is faulty.

Iran is one of the hottest countries in the world, yet as of March 23, the official statistics issued by the country’s health ministry about the coronavirus pandemic showed that 23,049 people have been infected and 1,812 deaths recorded across the country.

Ethiopia is known as the hottest country in Africa, thus far, the total number of people who have acquired coronavirus in the East African nation is 12.

U.S. President Donald Trump has made statements that warm weather in April may do away with coronavirus, telling supporters at a North Carolina rally that "when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,”.This, according to ABC.

However, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institute of Health Anthony Fauci told Congress that while he hopes warm weather will help slow transmission rates, the government “can’t operate under that assumption.”

Indeed, warmer weather could slow the spread of coronavirus - but not by much.

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The truth is, the virus that causes Covid-19 – which has been officially named SARS-CoV-2 – is too new to have any firm data on how cases will change with the seasons.

There are some early hints that Covid-19 may vary with the seasons

The spread of outbreaks of the new disease around the world seems to suggest it has a preference for cool and dry conditions.

However, temperature alone cannot account for the global variation in incidence.

Several initial analyses of transmission data suggest that the pandemic could ease up in summer. But that doesn’t mean people should take preventive measures for granted.

While studies have shown humidity greatly affects the transmission of the flu, viruses like SARS were only contained because of government health interventions and other measures - not basically because of warm weather, the director of Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard School of Public Health Marc Lipsitch said recently.

He named seasonal circumstances that could contribute to a slower spread of viruses in warmer times of the year, including schools—notorious for germ transmission being out of session for summer break, having more personal space and higher levels of vitamin D from getting more sunshine.

“While we may expect modest declines in the contagiousness of SARS-CoV-2 in warmer, wetter weather, it is not reasonable to expect these declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent,”  Lipsitch wrote in a recent post.

As of Wednesday, 25 March, more than 424,000 cases of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) have been reported in more than 190 countries and territories, resulting in more than 18,900 deaths and more than 109,000 recoveries.