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>But there is some evidence — and we’re working on quantifying it — that coronaviruses do transmit less efficiently in the warmer weather. So it’s possible that
by haunter 7y ago
>But there is some evidence — and we’re working on quantifying it — that coronaviruses do transmit less efficiently in the warmer weather. So it’s possible that we will get some help from that, but I don’t think that will solve the problem, as evidenced by the fact that there’s transmission in Singapore, on the equator.
There have been several research about seasonal influenza and how it correlates with weather, like temperature but especially humidity
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1000316 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0163445315001061 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01634...
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/173/2/127/99316 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/173/2/127/99316
- joeyspn 7y agoSingapore is having 30ºC days, yet the epidemic is progressing and the city is already bracing for the worse...
- kulahan 7y ago"warm weather may have an effect on transmission" and "a warm city is dealing with infections" are not mutually exclusive statements. And for the record, as of a little over a week ago, there were only a dozen cases in Singapore according to the WHO. Even if they were mutually exclusive, Singapore isn't exactly the best example. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200202-sitrep-13-ncov-v3.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...
- nosborn 7y agoAs of yesterday it’s 47 cases in Singapore. https://www.moh.gov.sg/2019-ncov-wuhan https://www.moh.gov.sg/2019-ncov-wuhan
- droithomme 7y agoHm, increasing 47/12 in 7 days is the same as doubling every 3.55 days.
- hatenberg 7y agoSome involve evacuated individuals from Wuhan so its actually a slower growth rate
- hunvreus 7y ago22 of these were traveling straight from Wuhan.
- catalogia 7y agoSingapore also has a lot of air conditioning. Perhaps the transmission is occurring primarily indoors, away from the 30ºC heat.
- sitkack 7y agoAnd circulated through the building via blowers.
- nutjob2 7y agoExactly. The comparison with Indonesia is interesting, which has a similar climate, but isn't as rich or developed as Singapore. Air conditioning is actually very conducive to colds and the like. When you go from outside to inside you're usually sweaty and the air conditioning tends to make you too cold until you dry out. I've caught way more sniffles in the tropics than in the freezing climates.
- tim333 7y agoAnecdotally, I flew from Bali to Singapore today and there seemed to be a lot more sniffles and coughing in Singapore. In Bali the architecture is very open with lots of fresh air, scooters being popular for transport whereas in Singapore they tend more to sitting together in air conditioned boxes of various types (buildings, busses etc).
- et-al 7y agoAir-conditioning also removes humidity from the air. On a tangent, I'd love to see a graph of illnesses during summer before / after the widespread adoption of AC.
- aivosha 7y agomaybe it could have been much worse if it was colder.
- Fomite 7y agoA couple notes on this: - Right now, there's some ongoing research about R0 relative to humidity, and it's not promising. This includes Singapore, but it should also be noted that Singapore has an amazing public health system that will confound using it as an example in both directions. - Having written a review on the seasonality of influenza, the fact of the matter is we have very little notion of why it's seasonal, and a lot of "just so" stories.
- gniv 7y ago> Having written a review on the seasonality of influenza Is one of the theories lack of Vitamin D?
- Anon84 7y agoCan you point me to your review? A few years ago (circa 2010 or so) when I was seriously working on epidemic modeling, we tried to look for an effective seasonality model, based on temperature, humidity, etc that worked globally and failed miserably. What seemed to work in one country or area failed completely in others, and vice versa. I'm curious to see if things have improved since then
- edoo 7y agoHopefully the novel part isn't that it acts like the Spanish flu and thrives just as well in the spring and summer and lasts years.
- alexanderhorl 7y agoAlso the coronavirus doesn’t really seem present in countries in the Southern Hemisphere except for some imported cases in Australia. There’s nothing being heard of South America or Africa which could be because of their hot climate.
- RandomBacon 7y agoDo many people from those areas travel to China compared to places where the coronavirus?