Will heat stop the spread of new virus? Nobody really knows

As outbreaks of the brand new coronavirus that first emerged in China continue to spread in a lot more than 100 countries - particularly those experiencing winter - one of the primary unanswered questions is how it'll behave in warmer weather.

Like influenza, the brand new disease is a respiratory infection owned by a family group of viruses that typically survive longer in colder environments. Most persons experience only mild or moderate symptoms, such as for example fever and cough, but older adults and persons with existing health issues may have more extreme illnesses, including pneumonia.

The virus has already reached every continent except Antarctica but has yet to cause major outbreaks in the southern hemisphere. Some key questions on how the virus might behave after the temperature rises:

WILL THE VIRUS RETREAT IN HOT WEATHER?

No one knows. The brand new coronavirus was identified only in late December and most scientists say there is merely no data to suggest the COVID-19 cases begins declining in warmer weather.

“We have to assume that the virus will continue steadily to have the capability to spread, and it’s a false desire to say yes, it'll just disappear during the warm months like influenza,” said Dr Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization's emergencies chief.

Dr Dale Fisher, a senior consultant in infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore, was similarly unconvinced that hot weather would considerably slow its spread.

“Maybe after it’s been around for a couple of years and almost all of the world has already established it, maybe then it'll settle right into a more flu-like pattern,” he said. “Since we have no natural immunity to the, we’re all a lot more vulnerable, regardless of what the elements is.”

But Dr Mohammad Sajadi, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, thinks weather might are likely involved. He and colleagues found a striking temperature similarity among regions with sustained outbreaks of COVID-19: between 5 and 11 degrees Celsius (41 and 52 degrees Fahrenheit).

“If we're right about seasonality, that may help with surveillance and other public health measures," Sajadi said.

HOW HAVE RELATED VIRUSES BEHAVED?

The new virus is genetically related to SARS and MERS. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome first broke out in China in late 2002 and eventually sickened about 8,000 people worldwide before it had been declared contained in July 2003.

However the arrival of summer wasn't what stopped SARS. Extraordinary measures that included shutting down travel from epicenters in Asia and Canada and a mass culling of palm civets that spread the disease to humans were largely credited for curbing the disease.

Although the transmission of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome hasn't been entirely interrupted, its spread to humans from camels is mainly sporadic, sparking limited outbreaks since being discovered in 2012.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can say about seasonality and the coronavirus predicated on what we’ve seen with SARS and MERS,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the guts for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I’ve been in the Arabian peninsula when MERS is spreading in 110-degree (43 degrees Celsius) heat just fine,” he said.

WHY HASN'T THE VIRUS CAUSED SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE EPIDEMICS?

It could be prematurily .; past pandemics have sometimes taken months to reach every country on the planet.

Surveillance may also be a concern. The symptoms of COVID-19 act like those for numerous other diseases, including flu, measles and malaria, so detecting cases of the brand new virus is challenging.

Benjamin Cowling, head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Division at the institution of Public Health at Hong Kong University, said he suspects wider outbreaks exist in countries that curently have confirmed cases, such as Thailand and Vietnam.

“Most of the typically hot countries, we think, have not been testing as aggressively as a number of the colder ones have already been,” he said.

Cowling also said that how people behave in winter environments is probable having an effect.

“People are more likely to invest time indoors in colder weather than they are in the summertime," he said. “Additional time indoors means that persons are more likely to be in the same rooms together and therefore get infected.”

Sajadi, the professor who found the temperature similarities, acknowledged epidemics are influenced by numerous factors but hypothesized that countries with cooler weather could possibly be worse influenced by the coronavirus, noting that even southern parts of countries with big outbreaks, like Italy and Iran, have not been hit as badly.

But, Cowling said, higher temperatures are unlikely to fully stop the continued spread of the virus.

“I don’t think we are able to count on it stopping in the summertime. It may slow down, nonetheless it won’t be stopped,” he said. “At this rate, we would expect every country in the world to have cases in about nine months - we’re headed towards that now. ”