Predicting how a novel virus will behave based on how others behave is always speculative, but sometimes we have to do so when we have little else to go on. Myth 2: The “common cold” coronaviruses are seasonal, with little transmission in the summer, so SARS-CoV-2 will be too. The resurgence confirms that it was control measures that stopped transmission the first time. This resurgence was eventually linked to a case from the first wave. In Toronto, SARS resurged after the initial wave was controlled and precautions were discontinued. These worked well for SARS because those who were most infectious were also quite ill in a distinctive way - the sick cases were the transmitters, so isolating the sick curbed transmission. These involved isolating cases, quarantining their contacts, a measure of “social distancing,” and other intensive efforts. It was killed by extremely intense public health interventions in mainland Chinese cities, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Canada and elsewhere. Myth 1: In 2003, SARS went away on its own as the weather got warmer. The short answer is that while we may expect modest declines in the contagiousness of SARS-CoV-2 in warmer, wetter weather and perhaps with the closing of schools in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, it is not reasonable to expect these declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent.īefore making the positive case for my assertions, let me start by busting some myths. Some have even suggested that the experience with SARS in 2003 provides evidence for this assertion. Several people, including the US president, have suggested that the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19, will go away on its own in the warmer weather that will come in the Northern Hemisphere in coming months. This isn’t the case for the new coronavirus – fewer cases have been reported in young people, though this may be just because they are less likely to become seriously ill.Professor of Epidemiology and Director, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard T.H. However, children tend to spread flu because they have less immunity to flu strains than adults, who have been exposed to many strains. In particular, it could be linked to school closures, says John Edmunds, also at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It is thought one reason why flu spreads less readily in summer is that people spend less time together in confined spaces. “These viruses can certainly spread during high temperature seasons,” he says. However, if it is less infectious in warmer conditions, there is a greater chance of it spreading in the southern hemisphere as conditions there cool.ĭavid Heymann at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the global response to the SARS outbreak in 2003, points out that the MERS coronavirus has spread in Saudi Arabia in August, when it is very hot. “The other extreme scenario is that it will reduce in the summer but it will come back again in the winter and become what we call endemic, in that it will spread pretty much everywhere.” “One extreme scenario is that it will burn itself out sometime in the summer,” says Hunter. Read more: Could the new coronavirus really kill 50 million people worldwide?
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