Falling numbers of corona cases, more freedom: memories of summer 2020 arouse anticipation.
A new study shows the influence of sunlight on coronaviruses.
As early as January, a team of US, French and British researchers was able to prove that UV light can curb the spread of coronaviruses.
The higher the UV radiation, the lower the spread rate
of Covid-19: This is how the result of the study can be summarized
, which examined the influence of environmental conditions such as temperature or UV radiation on the corona pandemic. At the time, the researchers compared the climatic conditions and Covid-19 cases from 3,235 regions in 173 countries. "We found out that ultraviolet (UV) radiation has a statistically significant effect on the daily Covid-19 spread rates," says the
study published
on the specialist portal
PNAS
.
A new UK study comes to similar results.
As part of their analysis, the research team from the University of Liverpool around Kieran Sharkey examined
how the average number of people infected by a corona infected person - also known as the R value - changes due to higher UV radiation.
"Ten kilojoules of additional ultraviolet radiation per square meter reduce the R by 0.05," the
Spiegel
quotes
the researchers.
Sunlight lowers the R-value by up to 0.65
Their work was based on the R-values, which were measured in 359 cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants in 43 countries. As the study shows, the UV radiation there was between 30 and 130 kilojoules per square meter.
Sunlight could have reduced the R value by around 0.15 to 0.65, it said.
A low value, which, however, can have immense effects on the infection process.
Without any countermeasures and as long as society is largely without immunity, the R value of the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 is around three, as the
Spiegel
informs.
100 people infected with corona infect an average of 300 more people.
If this value drops by 0.5, for example, due to higher UV radiation alone, it is only 250. However, the researchers point out that UV radiation alone is not enough to prevent the virus from spreading exponentially.
Only a combination of different measures
such as the corona vaccination, good hand hygiene and keeping your distance would help to get the pandemic under control.
(jg)
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