Will warmer weather help fight coronavirus?

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Dr. Huerta on the coronavirus: "It is not the apocalypse" 1:42

Hong Kong (CNN) - As the new coronavirus began to spread around the world this year, a common message from skeptics of the emergency measures being implemented to stop the outbreak was that it was just like the flu: dangerous for Sensitive but routine groups and not something for which there should be confinement.

We now know that that assessment is incorrect. At its lowest estimated mortality rate based on current data, Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is believed to kill about 1-2% of known patients, compared to about 0.1% of influenza. Coronavirus also appears to be as infectious as influenza, and even more potentially, especially since there is no specific treatment, cure, or seasonal vaccine.

However, there is one area where experts expect the virus to continue to behave like influenza: to decline in the spring.

"This is a respiratory virus and these always cause problems during cold weather, for obvious reasons," Nelson Michael, a leading US military medical researcher, said of the new coronavirus last week. "We're all inside, the windows are closed, etc., so we typically call that the flu or flu season."

Influenza thrives in cold, dry conditions, making winter the season in much of the northern hemisphere. Winter behavioral differences can also have an effect. Michael predicted that the coronavirus could behave like the flu and give us "fewer problems as the weather warms up," but, he warned, it could come back when the weather cools down again.

The hope is that, along with radical government and public measures to decrease the number of new cases, slowing the spread during warmer weather would give health systems room to cope with the initial influx of patients. with coronavirus and buy time for the development of a possible vaccine.

"So it is really important to understand that a lot of what we are doing now is preparing for what we call the second wave," said Michael.

But what if the virus doesn't behave like influenza? Could we be dealing with infection rates that remain high throughout the year? More than 100 cases have been confirmed in Singapore, where it is hot and muggy most of the year. Australia, Brazil and Argentina, all currently in mid-summer in the southern hemisphere, have also reported dozens of cases.

Unknown

There is evidence to suggest that the coronavirus works particularly well in certain climates.

Some of the hardest hit areas worldwide, from Wuhan, where the virus was first detected, to Iran, Italy, and South Korea, are at roughly the same latitude, with similar temperatures and relative humidity. Researchers from the University of Maryland (UM) have even used this data to try to map other parts of the world that could be at risk of impending outbreaks.

Although the research remains preliminary, the UM study data suggests that certain weather conditions, while not determining whether the virus can survive, may help accelerate its spread.

"In addition to having similar mean temperature, humidity, and latitude profiles (locations along latitude 30-50 ° N) they also exhibit a similarity in that the timing of the outbreak coincides with a nadir in the annual temperature cycle, and therefore with relatively stable temperatures over a period of more than a month, "the authors wrote.

Brittany Kmush, a public health expert at Syracuse University of New York, who was not involved in the UM study, said that "influenza and other coronaviruses that infect humans tend to follow seasonality, with cases reaching their peak in the winter months in the northern hemisphere. However, we don't know if this virus will follow a similar seasonality pattern. "

David Cennimo, who studies infectious diseases at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said many experts "hope, and I think the right word is hope, that summer will decrease case numbers," although he added that "the data of tropical countries could affect this hope in some way. "

However, both Cennimo and Kmush cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from geographic data, pointing to the many remaining unknowns about the virus itself and its spread in recent months.

"The question is, are (the tropical cases) associated with travel connected to a known case or cases of unknown origin," Kmush said. "If there is seasonality, we would expect related cases and cases of unknown origin to decrease as the temperature rises. I think it is really too early to know whether we will see a seasonal pattern with the Covid-19 or not. "

Debra Chew, an assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers, agreed that a lack of understanding of the virus and how it behaves makes it almost impossible to predict something like seasonality right now.

"The dynamics for controlling the epidemic may depend on factors that influence the transmission of the virus, such as infectiousness and the spread of the virus by people with mild symptoms or without symptoms, or on behaviors to reduce the spread of the virus" , said. "We are not dealing with a virus like influenza that behaves predictably every year."

Seasonal scare?

Although coronavirus cases have skyrocketed in many countries this week, there has also been a glimpse of good news. Outbreaks in China and South Korea, formerly two of the worst affected countries, appear to be stabilizing, with fewer new cases on a weekly basis. This is due to prolonged intervention by health authorities, including a combination of quarantine, travel restrictions, and encouraging people to work from home and exercise social distancing, in addition to helping educate the public about the need for strict disinfection protocols.

However, it remains to be seen, when the areas leading the outbreak begin to relax the restrictions, whether the cases will rise again or whether the virus is really under control. As other parts of the world have hardly increased the actions to face it, many hope to receive help from the warm climate. However, even if it does occur, this may not mean that the virus has left us.

"There really is still a lot unknown about this virus," Kmush said. "If the number of cases drops during the summer, it would be a good idea to prepare for a rebound during the colder months."

Pandemic