Don't Count On Summer Warmth To Squelch Coronavirus

Coronavirus has spread to most nations (blue shading) and will
continue to envelope the world  Viruses often wane in the
 summer, but don't count on that with th coronavirus. 

As all of us know, the coronavirus pandemic we're enduring is much worse than seasonal flu we get every year.  Many more people will die from this than the regular flu, which is why we are all in a panic.

This virus has some simularities to the flu virus though.  The usual flu the world gets every year tends to wane in the summer, as warm weather seems to hinder its spread.  That begs the question: Will we get a similar warm weather break with the coronavirus?

The answer seems to be: Don't count on it, but maybe. Even if it does wane in the summer, that won't solve our problems.

As National Geographic reports, recent research indicates many viruses are more likely to stay intact and travel further in cold, dry air.  These viruses tend not to spread well in warm, humid air.   Some scientists think that low humidity, - you know the dry indoor air we deal with in the winter - makes mucus in the nose function less efficiently.

That mucus helps block viruses and bacteria from getting into your body, and the cold air might weaken that barrier, National Geographic notes. 

Additionally, summer tends to be sunnier than winter, and viruses usually don't do well in sunshine.

Of course, summer doesn't give complete protection from viruses. People still get sick in the summer.

This conronavirus now torturing us is new, so scientists really don't know whether it will wane in the upcoming warm weather in late spring and summer.  We are totally NOT off the hook, I can tell you that.

The current pandemic is seen around the world, including the Southern Hemisphere, where summer is just ending. (Actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson recently announced they have the virus, and they caught it in summertime Australia).

It's unclear if the coronavirus will get worse in the Southern Hemisphere as their winter sets in.  The bottom line is scientists really don't know if the coronavirus will wax and wane with the seasons.  Plus, viruses circulate all year in the hot, humid tropics, so summer isn't exactly a disinfectant.

Dr. Marc Lipsitch, Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, writes that  "new" viruses like the current coronavirus have an advantage.  Pretty much nobody is immune to it,  unlike "old" viruses that have been circulating for years.

New viruses can jump from host to host, person to person freely, without any interference from warm summer weather.  The new viruses like the one in the current pandemic have plenty of low hanging fruit to seize.

Older viruses, not so much.  Lipsitch writes: "Old viruses, which have been in the population longer, operate on a thinner margin - most individuals are immune, and they have to make do with transmitting among a few who aren't. In simple terms, viruses that have been around for a long time can make a living - spreading through the population - only when the conditions are the most favorable, in this case, in winter."

Even if summer gives us a slight break from the coronavirus,  it could easily come roaring back in the autumn.

Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University researcher on the flu-weather connection thinks that the virus will continue to rapidly expand in the United States and elsewhere through the month of April, and might finally start to decline in late May or June. This, according to a report by Bob Henson in the Category 6 Weather Underground blog. 

It we get lucky and the coronavirus does wane in the summer, that buys us a little time to get a handle on it. But even so, it would probably come roaring back in the autumn, before humanity has had a chance to develop a vaccine and innoculate people around the world.

One ominous precedent, according to Henson in the Category 6 blog, was the great pandemic of 1918. Sporadic cases popped up in March of that year, but seemed to subside.  Then the pandemic roared to life, killing 195,000 Americans in just the span of a month in October, 2018.  The pandemic would go on to kill many more.

Whether or not this coronavirus ends up being a seasonal thing, a lot of scientists say it's here to stay, and will circulate around the globe perhaps forever, always sickening and killing people.  That's why it's so important to develop a vaccine against this thing to limit the damage and prevent the vast majority of the world from continuing to all victim to the disease year after year.

Scientists are working intensely to develop a vaccine, but one that works is more than a year away, likely more than that.

I don't offer this report just because I want to scare people. It's just to tell you we are in this for the long haul.  Keep washing your hands, folks, and keep up the social isolation.