Coronavirus Spread: One Virologist Claims We Will Have More Coronavirus Cases In Winter

Coronavirus has taken the world by storm as nations around the globe try to come up with ways to tackle the increasing epidemic. Surprisingly enough, the spread of the virus has not been noted at any significant scale in India, the country with the largest population after China. A new Twitter thread might just be the answer to why.

Dr Angela Rasmussen, a Virologist from Columbia, has posted a thread on Twitter explaining the effects of environmental conditions on the novel virus strain. The thread then proceeds to highlight the takeaways from humans¡¯ understanding of it. Looking at it, it is easy to say that Dr Rasmussen has shared some interesting insights about the Coronavirus here.

The question at large put up by Dr Rasmussen on here Twitter thread is whether the viruses (in this case, Coronavirus) remain infectious for over a week if they are on surfaces? By seeking answers to this, humans can further try to work towards eliminating the existence of the virus on these surfaces.

The simple answer to this, as highlighted by Dr Rasmussen, is that the infectious span of the virus depends a lot on the environment. Citing sources, Dr Rasmussen raises a strong point that if the viruses are outside and under direct sunlight, their infectious span drops dramatically as the UV radiation in sunlight inactivates viruses.

(Dr Angela Rasmussen: Twitter)

The environmental impact

Reports indicate that the Coronavirus and other, similar virus strains can remain active on an infected surface for around 9 days. Dr Rasmussen now points out that this viability greatly reduces with the increase in temperature or humidity. She cites a report showing the SARS virus losing its infectivity by upto a 1000 times in high temperature, high humidity environments.

¡°A 3-log reduction is quite substantial. Depending on how much virus is on a given surface, a 3 log drop might effectively render the virus functionally non-infectious, if there are insufficient viable virus particles remaining to establish an infection¡± her following tweet reads.

A similar result has been derived from such studies on MERS virus too. So it would not be a long shot to assume that the Coronavirus can be deemed non infective under high temperature and high humidity conditions.

It is easy to consider how the Coronavirus might not be at its peak infectivity in a country like India, where high temperature and humidity are a given at most of the parts.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

How does it work?

Low humidity is said to impair the ¡°mucociliary clearance (trapping/expelling virus in mucus), antiviral immune responses, and tissue repair functions¡± as per Dr Rasmussen. Therefore, the bodily protection of humans against such viruses tends to drop when the humidity is low. As an example, the effect might just be responsible for the ¡°flu seasons¡± being marked in winters when the air is drier.

A key takeaway from here, the Coronavirus just might be a seasonal disease!

What happens when you get it?

More important than the effect of environment on the virus laying dormant on a passive object, we should try to understand how a host¡¯s body can be benefitted from this knowledge. Dr Rasmussen¡¯s tweets suggest that the response of a host to the virus can also be affected by the environment.

She cites a research paper by Professor Akiko Iwasaki that looks at influenza, an enveloped RNA virus just like Coronavirus that causes a similar respiratory disease. As per the study, mice in low low humidity conditions were more prone to severe influenza disease.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

Now there are some differences between the two strains and some might argue that the same principles cannot be applied to both. The understanding does, however, ¡®points us in the right direction¡¯ as per Dr Rasmussen.

Precautionary Measures

Rounding it off, Dr Rasmussen shares some precautionary measures that we all should keep in mind to keep the Coronavirus from spreading. These include washing hands regularly with soap, using hand sanitizer between washes, keeping surfaces clean using disinfectants, and coughing or sneezing only into a tissue.

Additionally, we can also control the environment to decrease the infectivity of the Coronavirus as per the above mentioned points. Humidifiers and heaters can help with the same. So as long as the temperature and humidity is high, we should have a fighting chance against the Coronavirus.