Summer Weather Is Unlikely To Slow The Pandemic, Let Alone End It

As we frequently do, we spent Christmas and New Years in southeast Asia. Deciding between Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, we picked Thailand. We didn't know about it at the time, but coronavirus was just kicking in. within a couple weeks of our departure in mid-January, the country started failing apart. We got the idea that coronavirus was rampant. By March they were closing down their entire tourist industry, a mainstay of the economy. And yet the reported confirmed cases in Thailand-- as well as Vietnam and Indonesia-- are insignificant. Our friends in Thailand say the numbers are complete bullshit and don't reflect how the pandemic has swept through the country. Virtually everyone I know in Bangkok who could has fled the city for the towns in the countryside where their families live.

• Indonesia- 6,575 (24 per million)
• Thailand- 2,765 cases (40 per million)
• Vietnam- 268 cases (3 per million)

Bali, the Indonesian island we go to-- and where tourism wasn't banned until Match 31-- doesn't have much of a COVID-19 problem, just a couple of tourist deaths, no locals. The island is more troubled by dengue fever and the social distancing rules are very lax. But Bali is pretty rural and without big air-conditioned buildings. Air-conditioned buildings are one of the environments coronavirus seems to thrive in best.

The average temperatures in Indonesia are generally in the 80s and 90s-- in the winter; same in Thailand. In Vietnam, the winters in the northern part of the country can sometimes fall into the 70s. When Trump-- and some more reputable voices-- began saying the coronavirus would disappear during the hot summers, it made no sense to me because of the growing cases in Thailand, even if they weren't being reported. The whole thing was confusing and the lack of transparency was making it impossible to figure out.

The last week, the Wall Street Journal published a piece by Jon Emont, Will Warmer Temperatures Bring a Coronavirus Reprieve? It’s Complicated, that tried dealing with the conundrum. The question, of courses whether not warmer temperatures stop or even slow the spread. "If they do," wrote Emont, "hard-hit countries like the U.S., Spain and Germany could get a reprieve come summer. Countries that are generally hotter, such as Indonesia and India, might avoid outbreaks on the scale of northern Italy and New York." He concluded "it isn't a yes-or-no question," even if the "coronavirus comes from a family that can’t take the heat. Coronaviruses in general are enveloped in a coat of fat and protein that tends to lose its shape at high temperatures, a process likened to melting that effectively disables the virus. They also tend to survive longest in conditions of low humidity."

And yet, two of the hardest hit states in the U.S.-- Louisiana and Florida and both hot and humid. Florida, where social distancing rules are a joke and the state's governor is daring the pandemic to kill more Floridians, had 25,492 cases by Saturday and 748 deaths-- 1,238 cases per million. Louisiana had 23,580 cases by Saturday and 1,267 deaths-- 5,056 cases per million, the 4th highest nationally behind cold states New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

A team of researchers at the University of Hong Kong who studied the virus in a laboratory found it was stable in cool temperatures of around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. But it deteriorated over time when stored at 72 degrees Fahrenheit. That implies the virus would perish quicker on surfaces like door handles when it is hot out.

The virus spreads in other ways, too, such as sneezing, when it moves through the air quickly enough that it is less likely to be affected by air temperature. It isn’t known what percentage of cases come from people touching infected surfaces compared with coughs and sneezes.

Many scientists predict reduced spread in warmer temperatures, but can’t say by how much.

Leo Poon, head of public health laboratory sciences at the University of Hong Kong, who helped conduct the study, said he doesn’t expect the virus to disappear in the summer. Social distancing would need to continue to prevent the disease’s spread, he said.

“I think we will see slightly less transmission during the warmer months, but not enough less to make a big difference,” said Linsey Marr, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who has researched why the spread of influenza shows seasonal variation. She said people spend much of their time indoors in air-conditioned settings in the summer, so the virus will continue to have cool environments in which to spread.

Influenza viruses, which aren’t coronaviruses, also have fatty outer layers vulnerable to high temperatures. They appear susceptible to humidity, too, with research showing high humidity levels reduce their infectivity. In temperate regions, infections caused by them generally peak in the winter and decline in spring. Still, it isn’t fully understood why these outbreaks are seasonal.

In warm, tropical countries, influenza spreads year-round, signaling high temperatures and humidity are not necessarily a death sentence for the virus. Researchers posit various theories for influenza’s seasonal behavior in some parts of the world, including that people spend more time together indoors when it is cold outside, making it easier for the virus to spread.

Covid-19 data over the past three months provides another clue about how the novel coronavirus reacts to heat, but it also paints a complex picture. Official case counts from around the world show most infections are occurring outside tropical climate zones, suggesting the disease spreads more slowly in hot and humid environments.

But a number of warm-weather countries have done only limited coronavirus testing. That makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about whether the lower numbers of cases result from low testing or high temperatures. While ascertaining the true scale of the spread is a problem in all countries, it is much worse for many of these countries.

Indonesia, a country of 270 million people-- roughly the population of the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain combined-- has conducted around 27,000 tests. Experts believe the number of infections is higher than the 4,600 reported so far. Mexico and Ecuador’s limited testing has raised questions about whether the confirmed caseload captures the full extent of the problem. In coastal Ecuador, patients are dying at home after being turned away from overwhelmed hospitals, and the country’s president has said official statistics undercount the actual caseload.

As the pandemic spreads, infections are trending upward even in some low-testing countries with generally warmer temperatures, like Mexico and the Philippines.

Still, not all warm places have a testing problem. Places like Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, where temperatures are high, as well as Australia, which saw its first cases during the summer, have tested widely for the coronavirus. They have fewer confirmed cases per capita than many other high-testing countries in Europe and Asia, suggesting warm weather could be playing a role.

In the U.S., more than half of reported cases are in the frigid Northeast, though warmer states like Louisiana, Georgia and Florida have seen a sharp rise in infections.

In a pandemic, testing and temperature aren’t the only factors to consider.

Experts say any impact high temperatures have may be countered by a transmission-aiding feature in play: low immunity levels in the population. The novel coronavirus has just begun to spread among humans in recent months, and experts believe it is likely that only a small portion of people have immunity at this point. Even if warming weather slows its spread by reducing the amount of time the virus survives on surfaces, the disease could still transmit quickly to large numbers of people through coughs and sneezes without encountering the barrier of immunity.

“It’s likely we’ll see decreases in transmission,” as the weather heats up, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “But it may not have as pronounced seasonality in its first appearance because there also isn’t any kind of herd immunity to stave it off.”

Meanwhile Harvard researchers working on COVID-19 are discouraging policy makers from expecting warm weather to solve any transmission problems. They conclude that social distancing will stop COVID-19 infections, not summer weather.

And last week the National Academy of Sciences sent Señor Trumpanzee a letter contradicting Trump's idiotic statement that "when it gets a little warmer [COVID] miraculously goes away." Trump's a fool and the scientists concluded that "There is some evidence to suggest that [coronavirus] may transmit less efficiently in environments with higher ambient temperature and humidity; however, given the lack of host immunity globally, this reduction in transmission efficiency may not lead to a significant reduction in disease spread without the concomitant adoption of major public health interventions."

Trump doesn't want to even try to understand anything like that. As Anita Kumar explained last night in Politico, Trump's main concern is his reelection campaign, not rates of infection. He is convinced that an early restart of the economy-- likely to intensify the pandemic-- will help him politically. "It’s a high-wire act for the president," wrote Kumar, as though she were writing about a sane, rational person and not a deranged sociopathic narcissist. "If the economy begins to recover with minimal additional infections, the president will take credit. But if infections spread or a second shut down is needed, he could be blamed. As a result, at least one person who speaks to Trump has urged him to not consider politics when it comes to lifting economic restrictions."