"Will 'COVID-19' Disappear When the Weather Warms Up?" Trump Says, But Is It True?

[Asia Economy Reporter Shinwon Yoon] As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, U.S. President Donald Trump said on the 10th (local time) that "the novel coronavirus will disappear in April when the weather gets warmer." But is President Trump's statement true?

Basically, viruses are related to weather. It is believed that viruses survive longer when temperature and humidity are low, and become more vulnerable when temperature and humidity are high. This is why epidemic febrile respiratory diseases such as influenza tend to spread from the cold and dry November to March of the following year.

According to a paper published by a research team at the University of North Carolina in the international journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus, which has an 80% similarity in nucleotide sequence to the novel coronavirus, survived up to 28 days at a relatively low temperature of 4 degrees Celsius. Low temperature provides an optimal survival environment.

However, this virus showed rapid inactivation as the temperature gradually rose to 20 and 40 degrees Celsius, and its activity was low when humidity was very low at around 20% or very high above 80%.

Similarly, a study by a research team at the University of Hong Kong observed that the SARS virus's survival rate sharply decreased at temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius and relative humidity above 95%.

In fact, SARS, which appeared in the winter of 2002, disappeared around July of the following summer.

Since COVID-19 shows similar characteristics to SARS, there is a forecast that it may follow a similar pattern in the future.

However, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), which is also compared with SARS, shows a different pattern. Research teams from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia analyzed that high temperature and high ultraviolet index increase the risk of MERS outbreaks. Low relative humidity and slow wind were identified as factors that reduce MERS occurrence.

Since SARS and MERS have different seasonal characteristics, experts explain that it is difficult to predict what seasonal effects the novel coronavirus will have. Considering that COVID-19 cases have occurred in hot regions such as Singapore, Macao, and Hong Kong, it is also difficult to generalize that the virus itself is vulnerable to high temperature and high humidity.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.