Will Coronavirus Pandemic Diminish by Summer?

Will Coronavirus Pandemic Diminish by Summer?(papers.ssrn.com)

30 points by hello_1234 6 years ago | 35 comments

perl4ever 6 years ago |

It seems to me mathematically certain that it will.

A week ago there were 170,000 cases, now there are 337,000.

337000*(337/170)^14.5 is roughly 7 billion.

14.5 weeks from now is July 1st.

So either it diminishes or it's over by July, guaranteed.

alexanderhorl 6 years ago | |

This is not taking into account the slowdown of spread due to containment measures.

perl4ever 6 years ago | | |

Either it will A or B, where A is "slows down". How is that "not taking into account the slowdown"?

op03 6 years ago | | |

Also not taking into account in many parts of the world there is no such thing as Flu Season.

And no one knows why.

jobigoud 6 years ago | | |

It does. They are saying it won't continue at this rate for 15 weeks.

mvanaltvorst 6 years ago | |

You can't extrapolate the spread of viruses using an exponential function, you have to use a logistic function. Unfortunately, there isn't enough data to accurately fit a logistic function right now.

perl4ever 6 years ago | | |

My mathematical intuition may not be any good, but if you are saying it will be a sigmoid type curve, would doubling the time be plausible?

But this is not in disagreement with my comment, since this would involve slowing down.

jgalt212 6 years ago | | |

Tell that to the "shutdown the world people". The entire basis of this response is the exponential function.

Wowfunhappy 6 years ago | |

Even if it diminishes, it won't be over—it'll come back in the fall, at which point we still won't have a vaccine.

The Spanish Flu was worst the next winter...

perl4ever 6 years ago | | |

Yeah, but that seems like a completely different situation. Wasn't the thing that happened then the dynamic where the sickest people were sent away from the front to the hospitals where they spread it, while the mild cases kept fighting?

Also, I said "or".

rogerthis 6 years ago |

I'm not much aware of details, but it seems it's thriving here in Brazil.

hello_1234 6 years ago | |

Do people in Brazil and Australia use Air Conditioners? Air Conditioners reduce both temperature and humidity and make a more favorable environment for COVID-19 transmission. The use of Air Conditioners in very low in India because only the richest can afford them.

ganeshkrishnan 6 years ago | |

Likewise in Australia. I suspect this study hints that person to person transmission is not affected but that the virus has lower viability via surface spread in hot and humid climates.

Australia is much more densely packed in Urban areas than other countries like India and in spite of favorable weather conditions the person to person transmission is high. They haven't enforced the shelter in place yet

runawaybottle 6 years ago | | |

I am very confused at the shockingly low cases in India, and the Indochina region.

Either it really is the climate or we’re talking zero testing and a fiasco that’s gonna engulf that region soon.

eliseumds 6 years ago | | |

Sorry? Australia's biggest cities are orders of magnitude less dense than Indian cities. Think 10-100x less.

eatmyshorts 6 years ago | | |

As I understand it, hotter weather helps to prevent the progression of the disease from the upper respiratory to the lower respiratory. When the disease moves to the lower respiratory area, patients typically need hospitalization and a ventilator, and are at a much higher risk of death. If you look at the death rates in Brazil and Australia, they are lower than in the northern hemisphere. Likewise, countries with ample spare ICU beds and ventilators (like Germany) have lower death rates than countries that don't (like Italy).

op03 6 years ago | | |

Where its hot and humid and positive cases are still showing up look at travel link density with China.

collyw 6 years ago | | |

I am in Catalunya in Spain its humid here, (not quite hot at this time of year) and we have plenty of cases.

MR4D 6 years ago |

Houston has high humidity, and will make it into the 90’s this week. If this is true, it should slow down here before someplace colder, right?

I would presume that if it doesn’t, then this summer assumption is not relevant.

hello_1234 6 years ago | |

I think we should encourage people to turn off their Air Conditioners, especially in indoor places like malls and bars where people gather. ACs reduce both temperature and humidity and make a more favorable environment for the virus.

nikolay 6 years ago | |

Heat, cold, sun, snow, and humidity don't have any effect on the virus (according to WHO). It was spreading rapidly in the Southern Hemisphere when it was Summer there.

reddit_clone 6 years ago | |

At the very least I hope the heat/sunlight would kill the viruses quicker when someone infected coughs on a park bench or something like that..

hello_1234 6 years ago |

Nytimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/health/warm-weather-coron...

Some research papers from the past about SARS-CoronaVirus: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22312351

fernly 6 years ago |

From the abstract, I gather this is a solid "maybe, maybe not".

xbhdhdhd 6 years ago |

We in the southern hemisphere are heading into winter. Not ideal

sbmthakur 6 years ago |

I think we will only have a definite answer by May/June for this question. The close cousin of nCov, the SARS Cov-1, had started retreating back in June 2003.

mattbrewsbytes 6 years ago |

An unscientific observation about "summer" is in the west, schools aren't in session. That might be a very large contributor to the spread of all viruses.

I think there are too many variables to approach this scientifically and people won't really care how it diminishes. Just do everything possible to limit the spread while scientists formulate a vaccine of sorts.

Suggesting that a seasonal change could even be considered dangerous because it may lead people to believe that containment is no longer necessary. It's only "summer" for roughly half the planet, right?