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Covid may become ‘seasonal’, UN says
GENEVA, March 18, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Covid-19 appears likely to develop into
a seasonal disease, the United Nations said Thursday, cautioning though
against relaxing pandemic-related measures simply based on meteorological
factors.
More than a year after the novel coronavirus first surfaced in China, a
number of mysteries still surround the spread of the disease that has killed
nearly 2.7 million people worldwide.
In its first report, an expert team tasked with trying to shed light on
one of those mysteries by examining potential meteorological and air quality
influences on the spread of Covid-19, found some indications the disease
would develop into a seasonal menace.
The 16-member team set up by the UN’ World Meteorological Organization
pointed out that respiratory viral infections are often seasonal, “in
particular the autumn-winter peak for influenza and cold-causing
coronaviruses in temperate climates.”
“This has fuelled expectations that, if it persists for many years, Covid-
19 will prove to be a strongly seasonal disease,” it said in a statement.
Modelling studies anticipate that transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus
that causes Covid-19 disease, “may become seasonal over time”.
– Trigger? –
But Covid-19 transmission dynamics so far appear to have been influenced
mainly by government interventions like mask mandates and travel
restrictions, they said, rather than the weather.
The task team therefore insisted that weather and climate conditions alone
should for now not be the trigger for loosening anti-Covid restrictions.
“At this stage, evidence does not support the use of meteorological and
air quality factors as a basis for governments to relax their interventions
aimed at reducing transmission,” said task team co-chair Ben Zaitchik of the
earth and planetary sciences department at The John Hopkins University in the
United States.
He pointed out that during the first year of the pandemic, infections in
some places rose in warm seasons, “and there is no evidence that this
couldn’t happen again in the coming year”.
The experts, who focused only on outdoor meteorology and air quality
conditions in the report, said laboratory studies had provided some evidence
the virus survives longer in cold, dry weather and when there is low
ultraviolet radiation.
But it remained unclear whether meteorological influences “have a
meaningful influence on transmission rates under real world conditions”.
They also highlighted that evidence around the impact of air quality on
the virus remained “inconclusive”.
There was some preliminary evidence that poor air quality increases Covid-
19 mortality rates, “but not that pollution directly impacts airborne
transmission of SARS-CoV-2”.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 0830 hrs