Member-only story
COVID-19 Spread Inhibited in Warm Weather — Will Coronavirus Go Away in the Summer?
Back in early March Trump speculated that “The virus that we’re talking about … a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat”. While overly optimistic, this prediction may turn out to be partly right. We now have some early research showing that COVID-19 may be less contagious in warmer weather.
A new draft of a paper written by Wang et al. was released April 3rd, showing that higher temperature and higher humidity lead to lower COVID-19 transmission. Published in SSRN, this paper analyzes cities across China, and compared the spread of COVID-19 to weather data. It was found that areas with higher temperatures and higher humidity had fewer cases of COVID-19. The virus was still quite contagious throughout the country, warmer southern regions seemed to be moderately protected.
This paper does not look at “why” COVID-19 spreads less in warm weather, but it is believed to follow a similar mechanism that is seen in other viruses. Viral particles are more stable at lower temperatures, and prefer the low humidity seen in cooler weather. There is also evidence that people have a weakened immune system…
