「で、日本はどうしてイタリアや韓国みたいにならないだろう？」
「もうすぐなるさ、たぶんね。時間の問題だと思うね。でもこの国だって不思議だよ」
「高温多湿のおかげとしかいいようがないね」
「でもシンガポールだって感染者100人超だったんじゃないかな」
「あそこは金持ちだからエアコン効かせた部屋で閉じこもってうつるんじゃないかな」
「ああそうか。高温多湿貧乏のおかげってわけだな」
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Coronavirus ‘highly sensitive’ to high temperatures, but don’t bank on summer killing it off, studies say
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The analysis indicated that case numbers rose in line with average temperatures up to a peak of 8.72 degrees Celsius and then declined.
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“Temperature … has an impact on people’s living environments … [and] could play a significant role in public health in terms of epidemic development and control,” the study said.
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It said also that climate may have played a part in why the virus broke out in Wuhan, the central China city where it was first detected.
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Other experts, like Hassan Zaraket, an assistant director at the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research at the American University of Beirut, said it was possible that warmer, more humid weather would make the coronavirus less stable and thus less transmissible, as was the case with other viral pathogens.
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“We are still learning about this virus, but based on what we know of other coronaviruses we can be hopeful,” he said.
“As temperatures are warming up, the stability of the virus could decrease … if the weather helps us reduce transmissibility and environmental stability of the virus, then maybe we can break the chain of transmission.”
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However, even if this were the case, the benefit would be greatest in areas that had yet to see widespread community transmission of Covid-19, he said.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation’s health emergencies programme, also urged people not to assume the epidemic would automatically subside in the summer.
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“We have to assume the virus will continue to have the capacity to spread,” he said.
“It’s a false hope to say, yes, it will disappear like the flu … we can’t make that assumption. And there is no evidence.”
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