![]() The researchers incorporated the effects of control measures, such as physical distancing, with climate. And, there is a glimmer of hope in one of the group’s models. Of course, climate is just one key factor to consider in evaluating the course of this disease. Long before then, NIH is working intensively with partners from all sectors to make sure that safe, effective treatments and vaccines will be available to help prevent the tragic, heavy loss of life that we’re seeing now. Over the longer term, as more people develop immunity, the researchers suggest that COVID-19 may likely fall into a seasonal pattern similar to those seen with diseases caused by other coronaviruses. That’s also clear from the rapid spread of COVID-19 that’s currently occurring in Brazil, Ecuador, and some other tropical nations. In fact, the team found that, even if one assumes that SARS-CoV-2 is as sensitive to climate as other seasonal viruses, summer heat still would not be enough of a mitigator right now to slow its initial, rapid spread through the human population. In all three scenarios, their models showed that climate only would become an important seasonal factor in controlling COVID-19 once a large proportion of people within a given community are immune or resistant to infection. So, the researchers ran three different scenarios based on what’s known about the role of climate in the spread of other viruses, including two coronaviruses, called OC43 and HKU1, that are known to cause common colds in people. Of course, because the virus emerged on the scene only recently, we don’t know very much about how it will respond to warming conditions. In the new study, the researchers developed a mathematical model to simulate how seasonal changes in temperature might influence the trajectory of COVID-19 in cities around the world. Less clear is how seasonal variations in the weather might modulate the spread of a new virus that the vast majority of people and their immune systems have yet to encounter. Those earlier studies focused on well-known human infectious diseases. Last year, they published one of the first studies to look at how our warming climate might influence those dynamics in the coming years. The Grenfell lab has long studied the dynamics of infectious illnesses, including seasonal influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). These sobering predictions, published recently in the journal Science, come from studies led by Rachel Baker and Bryan Grenfell at Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton, NJ. This research team found that humans’ current lack of immunity to SARS-CoV-2-not the weather-will likely be a primary factor driving the continued, rapid spread of the novel coronavirus this summer and into the fall. Among them are some experts on infectious disease transmission and climate modeling, who ran a series of sophisticated computer simulations of how the virus will likely spread over the coming months. But for now, many researchers have their doubts that the COVID-19 pandemic will enter a needed summertime lull. We’ll obviously have to wait a few months to get the data. Meanwhile, other coronaviruses that cause less severe diseases, such as the common cold, do spread more slowly among people during the summer. There have been hints from lab experiments that increased temperature and humidity may reduce the viability of SARS-CoV-2. With the start of summer coming soon, many are hopeful that the warmer weather will slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Francis Collins Credit: Modified from iStock/energyy “Another way of phrasing that is that El Niño’s impacts can often be unreliable in the summer, and not repeat from one El Niño event to the next El Niño event.Will Warm Weather Slow Spread of Novel Coronavirus? “Historically El Niño events during the summer tend to have very weak impacts over the United States,” L’Heureux said. El Niño and La Niña’s biggest impacts are typically on winter weather. However, even if El Niño does kick in before the start of summer, it probably won’t have a big impact on how hot or rainy it is, National Weather Service meteorologist Michelle L’Heureux explains. Forecasters say there’s an 80% chance the transition to El Niño takes place between May and July. NOAA’s summer predictions come as meteorologists are on standby for an El Niño to start any minute. ![]() Meanwhile, the Southwest, Pacific Northwest and Hawaiian Islands look like they’ll be on the dry side. Much of the Midwest, Southeast and East Coast are leaning toward a wetter-than-average summer season. The predictions for this summer’s precipitation are more patchwork. What El Niño means for the 2023 hurricane season
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