4 ms·

Temperature and Latitude to Predict Potential Spread and Seasonality for COVID19

SubiculumCode 7y ago
Hard to know the extent to which likelihood to test for COVID-19 varies by latitude. Still, apriori knowledge of these types of viruses makes this a pretty good guess. Summer can't come fast enough.
- makomk 7y ago
  That depends. The thing that seems to be worrying public health professionals is the potential for a second, larger resurgence in the autumn. If that hits at the same time as an even moderately bad flu season, things will get really ugly.
mataug 7y ago
PSA: There's a "download without registration" link on the bottom right of the page, just in-case anyone missed it.
allovernow 7y ago
I hope they're right but I worry these conclusions are premature. There's evidence of community transmission in Singapore which currently has rather warm and humid weather. Honestly just look at the current world map[0] - it seems the statistics in this paper may be out of date. Not to mention were starting to see early spread in third world countries like India which are unlikely to comprehensively test for it, at least not in the short term. The data in this paper may be biased. Given the relatively slow progression of the outbreaks, if Italy is any model, India and South America are about to have a bad time in the next 3-6 weeks. Let's hope otherwise. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak_by_country_and_territory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_...
- point78 7y ago
  I've read a theory that the reason Singapore has so many is because of air conditioning being used so much.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    What do you mean by "so many"? Singapore appears to be an amazing success story in containing C19. They are using aggressive contact tracing as part of that, so if it were spreading like wildfire through A/C vents surely that wouldn't be effective and they would have a much faster growth rate of cases.
    - alonmower 7y ago
      I don't think the assertion is that it's spreading through vents, just that spending time in a very air conditioned room mimics some of attributes of winter that make the spread of respiratory viruses more likely (dry air, dry nasal passages)
      - lokedhs 7y ago
        There may be something to this. If you look at the actual cases in Singapore, they seem to be clustered around two specific locations, one company and a single event which I would presume was held inside a single big hall. I'm in Singapore, and life here goes on pretty much as it always has. Except for a larger than normal number of people wearing masks, you can't really tell that this is ongoing. That said, the government is doing a lot to keep it that way. There is intensive contact tracing, and companies register people going in and out of their offices (to help tracing), if you're sick you're supposed to stay at home, and so on.
- dorfsmay 7y ago
  There's also been community transmission in Sweden as well. Sweden is further north than 50 degree latitude. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_S...
point78 7y ago
Tldr: 10 - 15 degrees Celsius seems to be the hotspot.
- SubiculumCode 7y ago
  but also humidity is important.
williesleg 7y ago
We're all gonna die.
everybodyknows 7y ago
Apropos of this -- summer brings more UV light, which breaks a fair variety of molecular bonds. But I've yet to come across any data on whether UV deactivates coronavirus. Anyone?
- kadoban 7y ago
  Are there _any_ viruses not deactivated by UV pretty quickly?
pengaru 7y ago
Their March-April visualization shows Italy as being outside of the predicted at-risk zone. It's March 10th and Italy just announced a nation-wide quarantine, how does this square with the model as predicted? Is it just too early to see? Will we know by April if this model is useless if Italy continues to have covid-19 spreading?
aaron695 7y ago
Africa and India seem to be proving this. But it does mean countries coming into Winter should be worried. Personally I think they should have been letting is spread before hand and burning out as many paths in the network as possible while it's somewhat containable. I wouldn't want to be going into Winter. That graph with the two lines one peaked the other flattened does leave out the capacity of hospitals goes to very very low in flu season. It's designed that way.
new_realist 7y ago
The paper has Iran in the wrong zone.

Hard to know the extent to which likelihood to test for COVID-19 varies by latitude. Still, apriori knowledge of these types of viruses makes this a pretty good guess. Summer can't come fast enough.

makomk 7y ago
That depends. The thing that seems to be worrying public health professionals is the potential for a second, larger resurgence in the autumn. If that hits at the same time as an even moderately bad flu season, things will get really ugly.

mataug 7y ago

PSA: There's a "download without registration" link on the bottom right of the page, just in-case anyone missed it.

allovernow 7y ago

I hope they're right but I worry these conclusions are premature. There's evidence of community transmission in Singapore which currently has rather warm and humid weather. Honestly just look at the current world map[0] - it seems the statistics in this paper may be out of date. Not to mention were starting to see early spread in third world countries like India which are unlikely to comprehensively test for it, at least not in the short term. The data in this paper may be biased. Given the relatively slow progression of the outbreaks, if Italy is any model, India and South America are about to have a bad time in the next 3-6 weeks. Let's hope otherwise. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak_by_country_and_territory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_...

point78 7y ago
I've read a theory that the reason Singapore has so many is because of air conditioning being used so much.
- cactus2093 7y ago
  What do you mean by "so many"? Singapore appears to be an amazing success story in containing C19. They are using aggressive contact tracing as part of that, so if it were spreading like wildfire through A/C vents surely that wouldn't be effective and they would have a much faster growth rate of cases.
  - alonmower 7y ago
    I don't think the assertion is that it's spreading through vents, just that spending time in a very air conditioned room mimics some of attributes of winter that make the spread of respiratory viruses more likely (dry air, dry nasal passages)
    - lokedhs 7y ago
      There may be something to this. If you look at the actual cases in Singapore, they seem to be clustered around two specific locations, one company and a single event which I would presume was held inside a single big hall. I'm in Singapore, and life here goes on pretty much as it always has. Except for a larger than normal number of people wearing masks, you can't really tell that this is ongoing. That said, the government is doing a lot to keep it that way. There is intensive contact tracing, and companies register people going in and out of their offices (to help tracing), if you're sick you're supposed to stay at home, and so on.
dorfsmay 7y ago
There's also been community transmission in Sweden as well. Sweden is further north than 50 degree latitude. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_S...

point78 7y ago

Tldr: 10 - 15 degrees Celsius seems to be the hotspot.

SubiculumCode 7y ago
but also humidity is important.

williesleg 7y ago

We're all gonna die.

everybodyknows 7y ago

Apropos of this -- summer brings more UV light, which breaks a fair variety of molecular bonds. But I've yet to come across any data on whether UV deactivates coronavirus. Anyone?

kadoban 7y ago
Are there _any_ viruses not deactivated by UV pretty quickly?

pengaru 7y ago

Their March-April visualization shows Italy as being outside of the predicted at-risk zone. It's March 10th and Italy just announced a nation-wide quarantine, how does this square with the model as predicted? Is it just too early to see? Will we know by April if this model is useless if Italy continues to have covid-19 spreading?

aaron695 7y ago

Africa and India seem to be proving this. But it does mean countries coming into Winter should be worried. Personally I think they should have been letting is spread before hand and burning out as many paths in the network as possible while it's somewhat containable. I wouldn't want to be going into Winter. That graph with the two lines one peaked the other flattened does leave out the capacity of hospitals goes to very very low in flu season. It's designed that way.

new_realist 7y ago

The paper has Iran in the wrong zone.