Warmer Weather May Slow, But Not Halt, Coronavirus (nytimes.com) 113
Communities living in warmer places appear to have a comparative advantage to slow the transmission of coronavirus infections, according to an early analysis by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From a report: The researchers found that most coronavirus transmissions had occurred in regions with low temperatures, between 37.4 and 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (or 3 and 17 degrees Celsius). While countries with equatorial climates and those in the Southern Hemisphere, currently in the middle of summer, have reported coronavirus cases, regions with average temperatures above 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (or 18 degrees Celsius) account for fewer than 6 percent of global cases so far. "Wherever the temperatures were colder, the number of the cases started increasing quickly," said Qasim Bukhari, a computational scientist at M.I.T. who is a co-author of the study. "You see this in Europe, even though the health care there is among the world's best."
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It is only uncommon amongst those who do not know the English language.
Southern Emisphere (Score:3)
Re:Southern Emisphere (Score:5, Funny)
Since they have upside-down antibodies, it may confuse COVID-19 long enough that they may have a fighting chance.
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Well, that depends on what they do with the time this buys them -- if any.
I doubt it will make that much difference. The effect appears to be modest and most Southern Hemisphere countries have their populations concentrated in places with relatively mild winters.
If you look at Italy, the vast majority of cases are in Lombardy, upon the Swiss border, followed by adjacent provinces. There aren't many population centers south of the equator that get that cold.
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There aren't many population centers south of the equator that get that cold. ...
Lombardy is not that cold. And there are plenty of cold population centers in south america. But the people from there travel not so much and no so far
However you are right :D Tasmania is nearly empty, hehe.
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And there are plenty of cold population centers in south america.
No, there really aren't.
Even Hobart, Wellington and Auckland are closer to the equator than Lombardy.
The big cities of the south are nearly all tropical or sub-tropical.
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Wellington and Auckland are not in South America.
And latitude is not the only factor ... I told you that already long ago.
On same latitude south america or coastal Australia (note not inland) , New Zealand etc. are much colder than the north ... up to you to figure why :P
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Wellington and Auckland are not in South America.
Auckland is the southernmost city of more than 1M.
It is closer to the equator than Barcelona, Rome, or Athens.
You may need a sweater in Auckland, but no winter coat is needed and snow is very rare.
There are "cold population centers" in the Southern Hemisphere only for very liberal definitions of both "cold" and "population center".
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Ok,
I repeat it for you:
Wellington and Auckland are not in South America.
Wellington and Auckland are not in South America.
Wellington and Auckland are not in South America.
Look on a map, perhaps one that contains ocean currents, then compare South America. with were Wellington and Auckland are ... (*facepalm*)
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Wellington is the southernmost city in the world with 1M people.
I am fully aware that Wellington is not in South America. My point is that EVEN WELLINGTON is not in a cold area, and South America has NO cities that size anywhere near that far south.
So if you think that South America has a "population center" comparable to, say Milan in Lombardy, that is cold, please name it.
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Lima, Callao
Santiago de Chile
not sure about Montevideo, as it is at the coast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Again: the talk was about south america, not australia/new zealand.
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Lima, Callao
Santiago de Chile
not sure about Montevideo
Lima is a tropical city, located on the coast.
Santiago de Chile is on the Pacific coast and is similar in both latitude and climate to Southern California.
Montevideo is a coastal city with a humid subtropical climate.
Again: the talk was about south america, not australia/new zealand.
Fair enough. But there are no big cities (1M or more) anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere that have blizzards or other serious cold weather. There are hundreds of such cities in the Northern Hemisphere.
Overall, the Southern Hemisphere is colder than the Northern Hemisphere, but the population
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Its probably not so much the heat (Score:2)
After, all , its quite happy being spread around nice cosy buildings. Its more likely the extra sunshine plus the sun being higher in the sky and hence higher levels UV sterilising things people have touched outdoors.
Re:Its probably not so much the heat (Score:5, Interesting)
And just the fact people go outside more when it's warmer and are not so close together when outdoors probably reduces transmission a bit too.
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Unless of course you're under orders to stay at home.
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You should still be getting plenty of sunshine, unless of course your house doesn't have a clear polycarbonate roof.
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Maybe I shouldn't have gotten the UV coating on all my windows.
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Well, you know what they say: "People in houses with clear polycarbonate roofs shouldn't throw stones."
Re:Its probably not so much the heat (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless of course you're under orders to stay at home.
Still need to get outside. Remember they found that with the Spanish Flu, even getting seriously ill people outside for 20 minutes a day made a huge improvement on their outlook and recovery. Enough that it was made mandatory at the indoor and outdoor hospitals.
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In practice that's not what people are doing.
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You're right, that's what people are not doing. Which is why you're seeing harsher and harsher "shelter in place" things happening. My point was that going outside for a bit and soaking up that outside air isn't going to hurt you in the least, and is probably better then going stir crazy. Most people don't handle it well, though, those of us who find coding or gaming binges to be enjoyable and small diversions will likely have no problems at all.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm allergic to fresh air and neighbors.
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Vitamin D has no known effect on the immune system. You are mixing it up with Vitamin C.
Vitamin D is mainly important for bone strength/growth and calcium transport/resorption.
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Bullshit.
From Pubmed: [nih.gov]
"Vitamin D can modulate the innate and adaptive immune responses. Deficiency in vitamin D is associated with increased autoimmunity and an increased susceptibility to infection."
Vitamin D crucial to activating immune defenses: [sciencedaily.com]
"Scientists have found that vitamin D is crucial to activating our immune defenses and that without sufficient intake of the vitamin - the killer cells of the immune system -- T cells -- will not be able to react to and fight off serious infections in the body. The
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If I had mod points I'd mod you up. There have been quite a number of studies concluding that vitamin D is very important for your immune system. The proof is much more compelling than for Vitamin C.
In fact a hypothesis exist that the reason that people from warmer areas suffer a lot less from i.e. the flu is not because it spreads less but because people there have more vitamin D.
They should: test test and test. See if there are actually less infections or if higher vitamin D levels account for less proble
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And there are magnitudes of more studies that say: vitamin D as immune system enhancers can not be supported.
Hint: google is your friend.
Another hint: strange that only americans think that Vitamin D has influence on the immune system. Ah, I have no clue if it has regarding auto immun reactions, never checked that. It certainly has no effect all regarding Flu or Corona neither as precaution nor as treatment.
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I did use my friendly google. To my surprise, in a brief test I was not able to find a large bolus of studies against vitamin D and the influence on the immune system. By contrast I found a substantial literature linking low levels of D to autoimmune disorders and some linking insufficiency to lowered immunity to pathogenic insult.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"Vitamin D can modulate the innate and adaptive immune responses. Deficiency in vitamin D is associated with increased autoimmunity as well as a
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Deficiency in vitamin D is associated with increased autoimmunity as well as an increased susceptibility to infection." ... :P
Obviously if you have a Deficiency fixing that helps
However there is no evidence or study that shows that taking extra vitamin D boosts the immune system. Sorry
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https://www.bmj.com/content/35... [bmj.com]
Results 25 eligible randomised controlled trials (total 11321 participants, aged 0 to 95 years) were identified. IPD were obtained for 10933 (96.6%) participants. Vitamin D supplementation reduced the risk of acute respiratory tract infection among all participants (adjusted odds ratio 0.88, 95% confidence interval 0.81 to 0.96; P for heterogeneity 0.001). In subgroup analysis, protective effects were seen in those receiving daily or weekly vitamin D without additional bolus
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Pictures of packed beaches and parks suggest that no, simply being outside is not enough. Distance is what counts. Easier to do outside, to be sure, unless you actively congregate in medium or large groups.
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We know community spread is happening. We know proximity, along with what appears to be the virus's ability to survive for some length of time on surfaces. Outdoors is safer than indoors, but being outside does not function as some sort of magic barrier. Social distancing, even outside, has to be practiced.
Re: Its probably not so much the heat (Score:1)
Warm and very HUMID - like your nose and throat (Score:2)
Louisiana is warm and MOIST - much like our sinuses.
Louisiana would indicate what would happen if the weather got warmer and much more humid.
It's one data point, but not representative of what most places are like in the summer vs winter - most places don't get wetter in summer.
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Have you not heard of humidity? Practically the entire East coast gets much more humid starting in late-May, early June. Then you have the redneck states in the middle part of the country which get hit with moisture coming off the gulf.
About the only places which don't get extra humidity are from Colorado up to Washington. That corner of the country stays relatively dry compared to rest of the country.
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That didn't seem right, it seems more moist in the fall and winter. So I looked it up. Higher humidity in summer. Interesting..
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usually humidity is bad for viral propagation of this type on surfaces
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Well, to be fair...the warm stuff has only really recently been hitting.
This week, however, we appear on track to set records in the NOLA area...it's 82F right now at 12:20, and I believe next couple days it is supposed to get near 90F....
Hoping that helps a bit to cut
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I'm not sure what type of evidence you're getting from those pictures, but we would need to have some evidence that community spread was happening at those beaches.
Evidence? The contagion was spreading at those beaches because that's how virused work. It was spreading on a community level, it was spreading on an national level and before the travel bans it was spreading on an international level. After the travel ban the virus was spreading among people bunched up by the thousands like sardines in a can at Corona checkpoints in US airports before being sent home. At those beaches, all it took was for a hundred people to bunch up at a poplar bar and half of them were i
Seems like a weak effect (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at growth rates across countries [imgur.com] it seems there is little correlation between temperature and virus spread. Warm Spain had high spread. Cold Sweden had low spread. Nearly all countries outside east Asia have relatively similar trajectories, and the distinguishing quality of east Asia is policy not temperature.
With a regular flu virus, which is pervasive but much of the population already has some immunity, it is possible that temperature can make the difference between (let's say) Ro=1.2 and Ro=0.8, and thus between whether the number of cases grows or shrinks. But with SARS-CoV-2 Ro is over 3, and even if warm temperature lowers that a bit (to let's say 2.5) there will still be catastrophic exponential growth, very quickly.
Re:Seems like a weak effect (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Seems like a weak effect (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously many factors are involved in the spread should be the message. The idea that warm temperatures would “kill” the virus has been repeated without evidence by certain people including here on this site.
It comes from the highest authority. [whitehouse.gov] This thing will miraculously disappear by April.
Suck it up people, only 1 more week...
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The researchers should be looking at the confounding effect of Vitamin D and sunshine. Almost all of Europe is low on light right now on an absolute scale. Perhaps the Scandinavians are getting more Vitamin D through seafood.
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My doctor had me start taking vitamin D supplements a few years ago, since vitamin D deficiency is pretty common among people who live in the northern hemisphere.
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Just nitpicking, but you do not mean northern hemisphere but north of a certain degree, perhaps 55 or 60. ...
And then again it also depends on nutrition, Scandinavians eat a lot of fish
Re: Seems like a weak effect (Score:2)
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If you are confounding Vitamin D with sunshine, you have bigger problems than this virus.
Re:Seems like a weak effect (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking at growth rates across countries [imgur.com] it seems there is little correlation between temperature and virus spread. Warm Spain had high spread. Cold Sweden had low spread. Nearly all countries outside east Asia have relatively similar trajectories, and the distinguishing quality of east Asia is policy not temperature.
With a regular flu virus, which is pervasive but much of the population already has some immunity, it is possible that temperature can make the difference between (let's say) Ro=1.2 and Ro=0.8, and thus between whether the number of cases grows or shrinks. But with SARS-CoV-2 Ro is over 3, and even if warm temperature lowers that a bit (to let's say 2.5) there will still be catastrophic exponential growth, very quickly.
It's a great chart, but there's a big problem that is easy to forget; it shows only the "confirmed case".
So you have to remember that South Korea, with their massive testing program, show a clearer picture that many others that have just recently started testing their people like here in Canada. For all we know, some careless country like the US could have an actual count much, much higher than the official number. This is one of the reasons I prefer to use the death count (death don't lie), but it is still not perfect.
Silver lining here, Italy's death count has dropped for the second day in a row.
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Death counts have issues with standardized reporting.
If someone is hospitalized due to COVID-19 and they die from pneumonia, how is that recorded? Italy is recording it as a death due to COVID-19, but other countries may not include it in their counts of COVID-19 deaths.
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Death counts have issues with standardized reporting.
If someone is hospitalized due to COVID-19 and they die from pneumonia, how is that recorded? Italy is recording it as a death due to COVID-19, but other countries may not include it in their counts of COVID-19 deaths.
As I said, it's not perfect. But it still gives a better picture than confirmed cases IMO. Furthermore, many countries are revising the death count after the autopsy (if they can do it). Canada had a -1 death toll last week when they found out that COVID-19 wasn't the cause of death.
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You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until our alleged president gets his KoolAid swilling followers to wander about in the hopes of getting his resorts to make money again. Then we'lll show you some real increases...bigly increases, more bigly than in the history of humans, and we'll get Mexico to pay for it.
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Looking at growth rates across countries [imgur.com] it seems there is little correlation between temperature and virus spread
It's a great chart, but there's a big problem that is easy to forget; it shows only the "confirmed case".
This is one of the reasons I prefer to use the death count (death don't lie), but it is still not perfect.
Agreed, for most countries. But not for Russia, which is suspected of accounting for possible Covid-19 deaths as generic pneumonia and acute respiratory infection deaths. Deaths are deaths, but death statistics can also be manipulated.
Looking at incomplete data helps how? (Score:1)
Looking at growth rates across countries
You are looking at numbers that simply cannot be compared. The countries in the list all have wildly different testing rates, and none of them have tested more than a few percent of the population. Germany might have millions infected, while Brazil has thousands...
It seems like it's far more intelligent to look at viruses similar to Covid19 and see how they have behaved in the past, to understand the future. There the signs are that in fact warmer weather does slow
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Spain isn't warm. The countries with limited spread currently have daily high temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or more. Seville is only starting to hit 70 degrees about now in late March.
This might be due the UV light associated with equatorial regions, however. Or it might be the anti-malaria drugs some of them are on.
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Or it could be not being on ACE inhibitors. Or people not going to the doctor for the sniffles. Or a slow start due to less traffic from China.
Good epidemiology is complicated.
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Depends where in Spain: altitude matters, and most of Spain is on a high plateau. Here on the east coast we had temperatures in the 20s C on quite a few days in late February / early March, although the past week has been colder and rainy.
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Propagation of the virus in the U.S. was accelerated by the culture of the alleged administration.
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You seem to be comparing messy reality with 20/20 hindsight perfection, in which anything will fail. Late last year the United States was rated as the most prepared country in the world [ghsindex.org] (at 83.5) for epidemics and pandemics by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHCHS). Italy ranked #31 (56.2).
The United States is doing just fine against this pandemic, with the exception of NY, which has as many cases as of the rest of the country combined (mostly in NYC). C
Earlier analysis (Score:2)
I'm a big fan of MIT. But the young turks appear to be slow on the ball this time. The following analysis was published quite some time ago (as measured in coronavirus years) --
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/p... [ssrn.com]
The paper is not longer available for download from that site, but it was as of 10 days ago when I snagged a copy. I imagine there are repositories where it is still available for download.
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Given the paper is not available there, it would probably be of use to people to post the abstract/conclusions:
Findings: To date, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has established significant community spread in cities and regions along a narrow east west distribution roughly along the 30-50o N’ corridor at consistently similar weather patterns consisting of average temperatures of 5-11oC, combined with low specific (3-6 g/kg) and absolute humidity (4-7 g/m3). There has been a lack of significant community establishment in expected locations that are based only on population proximity and extensive population interaction through travel.
Interpretation: The distribution of significant community outbreaks along restricted latitude, temperature, and humidity are consistent with the behavior of a seasonal respiratory virus. Additionally, we have proposed a simplified model that shows a zone at increased risk for COVID-19 spread. Using weather modeling, it may be possible to predict the regions most likely to be at higher risk of significant community spread of COVID-19 in the upcoming weeks, allowing for concentration of public health efforts on surveillance and containment.
from the BBC article (Score:2)
Maybe the NYT and BBC share the same source. Anyhow, corona viruses have an oily outer coat. If it is cold, it gets tougher just like fat in your refrigerator. When it gets warm, it become more susceptible to being broken.
That said, if the main transfer is directly between people, then the temperature won't matter much. It only seems to matter if the virus particles are left on a surface.
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Re: from the BBC article (Score:2)
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The parodox of Economic Crisis (Score:2)
When we get Economic Crisis we will normally produce lower amounts of CO2 however environmental regulations are also rolled back or laws in progress get put off or canceled.
So after the economy recovers environmentally bad policies and behaviors are at full force, so the benefits we get in the short term will often be lost and exceeded in the long term.
There is a narrative that good environmental behavior is bad for the economy. However, a good balanced environmental policy is good for both the planet and
The connection to Covid-19 is ... (Score:1)
Re:The connection to Covid-19 is ... (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, we brought you into this world....
We'll take you out....
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Unless they rely on rain belts and rivers, lakes and oceans not rising up and swallowing their houses.
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No one's going to drown from this, because all the rising rivers will be on fire.
This is irresponsible (Score:3, Interesting)
How did this guy get into MIT! He/She/Pronoun should be clearly stating that he found CORRELATION, NOT CAUSATION!
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Establishing correlation is not worthless. A (true) correlation implies causation. Oh! Yes, I know, that's not what that soundbite says. The actual caution is that correlation does not tell you the direction, or type of causal relationship. Once you've established a correlation you now have to figure out one of three options for the causal relationship.
Vitamin D not Temperature (Score:1)
There have been numerous studies linking Vitamin D to immune system efficiency. These studies confound temperature with sunshine. Pull data on hours of sun. You will find strong connections to where the virus was effective and low levels of sun. As the US and Europe become sunnier, the virus will wane.
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The US hasn't even seen the peak of infections. Any notion that somehow the US, by the grace of a health care system that leaves millions without any meaningful health care, and millions more with substandard health care, will just magically evade this is absurd. Look at New York City, now clearly becoming one of the major hot spots in the Western hemisphere.
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The EU and UK use socialised healthcare systems and they are all going under draconian lockdowns, most until may at the earliest.
Meanwhile, the US government is already looking to the end and expecting work to go back to normal by next week.
Tell me, who has the best health care in the world hmm?
The ones with the best healthcare systems are the ones doing the lock-downs because they are the ones who are following the advice of epidemiologists who in turn are the ones who know what the hell they are talking about. When this is over you will not only have the US standing out as having among the highest per capita infection rates, you will be able to overlay a map of the most affected areas with a map of where Fox News, One America News Network have the highest ratings and find a direct relationship b
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you will be able to overlay a map of the most affected areas with a map of where Fox News, One America News Network have the highest ratings and find a direct relationship between their ratings (read: the popularity of extreme right wing politics) and high infection rates.
Right! Because New York, New Jersey, California, and Washington (the top 4 most infected states at the moment [worldometers.info]) are such stalwart extreme right Republican voting states...
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Well according to breaking news, the WHO prognosed the USA as the next hot spot for the corona virus.
Come back within 2 weeks for reevaluation.
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EU and UK. Although your example is more about the quality of the political leadership, not the healthcare system.
Breaking: Nothing new (Score:2)
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Seoul's climate, particularly in the spring, is pretty close to New York's.
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There is a big difference between "may have an effect" and "being the reason".
If something is "the reason", it must dominate the other factors, so that they can basically be ignored (or close to that).
That is highly unlikely to be the case with Corona. You cannot pick a single region and interpret a temporal overlap of temperature-change with a reduction in infection-rate as evidence. Assume that the weather dominates, and explain Iran?
AUSTRAILIA (Score:2)
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OK, it spread, but how many people died compared to Italy?
~flyingfsck
And for how long were advisories and habituation of social-distancing practice present in Italy versus Australia? Prior to Italy, western reactions (other than avoiding Asian restaurants) were China Lies! Its work stoppage is nonsense! Community herd is the dominant variable to the significant exclusion of all others!
The agenda of it is as obnoxious as any paid advocacy emphaszing raw figures when proportion and history provide critical context to engage reasonably. You are compelled to ignore history as r
People die in Miami right now (Score:2)
...and it's 81 degrees F.
Anecdotal observations ... (Score:3)
Here is anecdotal observations that may support the conclusion that the virus is less infectious in warmer weather.
If you look at a country like Egypt, it was a source of early infections in the USA, Canada and all over Europe, and even Taiwan. It is a tourist country, and maybe the initial infection came with a tourist from China or Italy or elsewhere.
The Nile cruise ship that was quarantined helped spread the epidemic [washingtonpost.com] in many countries. The initial case was late January.
Egypt's numbers are low, but we can't rely on the official figure. The government is not transparent enough, and there is a shortage of testing kits, along with proper health care in general.
However, these low numbers are supported by the lack of reports of large numbers of deaths, which should happen in a country where the health infrastructure is lacking. If this was an outbreak, we would see Italy or Iran's scenario play out (overload in morgues with dead bodies, mass graves, and so on, and people would be posting videos to social media of such catastrophes).
This has not happened, why? Maybe the disease transmission is reduced, so the crippled health care system can cope with whatever cases that exist.
A similar situation may be at play in Pakistan, which has borders with Iran, and a Shia population that visits the shrines in Qom, the epicentre of the epidemic in Iran.
And if you remember, countries south of China did get cases early on. Places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand. Again, we don't see mass deaths in there despite the lack of health infrastructure.
That will be a topic of study for years.
I know, because I am originally from Egypt.
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That will be a topic of study for years. I know, because I am originally from Egypt.
It's under study now.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#what-do-we-know-about-the-risk-of-dying-from-covid-19
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Places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand.
I don't know about Cambodia but Thailand and Vietnam have excellent health infrastructure.
Vietnam started early with counter measures, much earlier than most countries.
Thailand put it under the carpet and we soon will get reports of mass death (they already have that but they hide it so far).
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They won't be able to hide it when the deaths mount, and people publish videos on social media.
Look at Iran. They tried to hide it all, but still, things leaked out. And that is what I anticipated would happen in Egypt.
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The King forbade publishing anything about corvid19 in Thailand. And as I have friends and relatives there I know it is pretty bad, just not how bad.
In Iran they have roughly 10 times more cases, than published. The WHO is expecting about 300,000 - in words so you see it is not a typo: three hundred thousand deaths in Iran. In other words: nothing really leaked out of Iran. The numbers there are all fake.
Corolated yes, but not causation (Score:3)
1) I live about half a year per year in Thailand.
Until recently they covered it up, we don't know how many are infected. But I know two people in person who are in the ICU an my wife knows a dozen people who are known to be infected.
Since about 2 weeks BKK and all bigger cities and tourist areas are on lock down. AND: that is a warm country.
2) the temperature in my opinion influences two things: general health and hence how easy you catch things, and air pollution.
At the moment it is unusually cold but sunny and windy in Germany, also very dry. In my layman opinion, the ratio between temperature and humidity on one site and the strength of the immune system on the other side are much more important than temperature alone. E.g. if we get a hot but humid summer or even late spring and then summer, it wont be stopped. However recent years indicate that we most likely get a rather dry summer again. Hopefully a rainy spring like last year, that would help.
Conclusion: how much the temperature is affecting we will know when we have more accurate numbers from Africa and Asia (Phillippines is on lock down too ... waiting for Indonesia to follow)
What seems conclusive is that the death rate is significantly lower in warm areas. (However: Germany is not a warm area at the moment ... and also has a low death rate)
Tail end of summer in Australia (Score:2)
Been close to 30 degrees C in my state, cases are still growing and rate still looks like it is increasing.
We have local elections this weekend that they have not called off and still expect people to go to (voting is compulsory in Australia). Expecting rate to continue to rise despite the warm weather.
If you're in the northern hemisphere, don't rely on summer to save you.
I guess yay climate change? (Score:2)