Corona virus cases in human will drop down drastically with the arrival of heat of the summer months.
Is this statement true?
Not exactly. We hope it does. But the truth is that no one knows that would be the case.
Why I say that ? …..
Temperature usually kills all kinds of viruses. And we assume that would happen with corona virus infection. But we must not forget that MERS virus (A type of corona virus) outbreak peaked during summer months (May till September) in 2018 in Saudi Arabia.
“MERS virus (A type of corona virus) outbreak peaked during summer months (May till September) in 2018 in Saudi Arabia.”
We know spread of FLU ( Influenza) virus infections drops very much during summer months. We don’t know if it is purely because the spike of temperature or merely due to the fact that the chances of spread among children, in the closed confinements of schools is lost, due to the summer vacation.
There is another explanation why Corona virus may behave differently to FLU virus and why it may not show the seasonal tendency. We know that unlike the kids, most adults would have been exposed to Flu viruses in their lifetime and consequently would have developed immunity against FLU virus. So FLU virus infection predominantly affects children and shows the seasonal pattern. But Corona virus is a new virus and both the adults and children have not been exposed and therefore presumed to infect both adults and children equally. So there may not be large numbers of cases in children and therefore no expectation of seasonal variations.
We would have to wait and see how Corona virus outbreak fizzles out. Hopefully soon.
Bottom line : We as a physician can neither give false hope nor scare the public unnecessarily
People need to be cautious and be ready for the impact in case of outbreak
