There are many hypotheses and myths around the coronavirus. The epidemic will disappear with the onset of warm weather, because viruses like cold and dampness? Or maybe air pollution is to blame? Italian experts have refuted several common theories, Il Giornale reports.
Climatologists do not see the relationship between weather and infections: the virus will not evaporate when it gets warm. Environmental pollution is also not an aggravating factor
Let's not mislead ourselves. Nobody says that the virus will weaken with the onset of good weather. More precisely, the words of the virologist Roberto Burioni are correct: "All respiratory diseases are less transmitted with the onset of warmth."
It is also true that saliva particles that enter the air evaporate faster with warming. But for the rest, there is no correlation between the rise in temperatures and the weakening of Covid-19. If the epidemic subsides in a few months, it will not be due to the climate, but exclusively to the restrictive measures that we are taking and the use of drugs.
Stop. Researchers do not yet know how Covid-19 will behave with the onset of warmth. All they know is that viruses tend to prefer cold and humidity. However, they also found out that the molecule of this coronavirus has abnormal behavior and is still fraught with unexpected discoveries.
There are no scientific studies on this issue yet. But it’s obvious from the first observations of climatologists that rising temperatures do not necessarily become a tool that we can use for our own good.
We are deprived of hopes for a summer revenge by a study of the University of Milan, Bicocca, Rome-3, Chieti Pescara, where climatic data from the province of Wuhan, as well as data from Lombardy and Veneto from February 20 to March 18, were analyzed. The results collected by ten stations were taken into account, both in the three main foci of the spread of the virus (Codogno, Nembro and Vo Euganeo), and in other areas of Lombardy (Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Pavia) with a significant number of infected. The relationship between the number of infected and meteorological conditions has not been identified.
This misconception arose with the hope that Covid would behave like SARS (or severe acute respiratory syndrome), an epidemic of which began in late 2002 and died out in July 2003. But this is probably a mistake. Unless, being outdoors, we will have less contact with others compared to the winter period, when people spend a lot of time indoors.
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From the analysis of data from Wuhan, it follows that the February temperature, which coincided with the peak of positive reactions to tests, was low, but at the same time higher than average (9.2 degrees compared to 5.8 over 30 years from 1971 to 2000). Cold snaps were below average. And even now, when the epidemic has almost disappeared, there is no climate change in the Hubei region that would make it possible to claim that the arrival of heat killed the virus.
The results of this study are quite plausible, especially considering what has been happening in the past few weeks. In Iran, where temperatures, of course, cannot be called low, the number of victims of the epidemic reached 1,685 people, and the number of infected - 22 thousand.
Another unknown is the relationship between smog and coronavirus. The hypothesis of its existence in recent hours has raised a wave of discussions in the scientific community.
A study by the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine in collaboration with the Universities of Bologna and Bari found a link between high levels of pollution and the spread of Covid-19 in the Padan Plain. The National Research Council objected: “The link between pollution and health is a scientifically established fact, it has reached a truly extreme level in the most polluted regions,” explains scientist Federico Fierli, “but the interactions and mechanisms that govern the epidemiology and spread of the virus are too complex. to establish a direct link based on the very limited data so far."
A diametrically opposite view, however, is held by Antonietta Gatti, a physicist who is one of the world's foremost experts on nanoparticle toxicity. According to the expert, it is very likely that Lombardy has become the epicenter of this emergency sanitary situation, including due to its greater exposure to atmospheric air pollution compared to other territories of the country.
“It is reported that many people, mostly elderly (average age 80), did not die from the coronavirus, but the virus played a role in their death. Already weakened people, that is, having a number of pathologies, including those associated with environmental pollution, did not have a sufficiently strong immune system, says Gatti. - Let me remind you that at the moment no doctor is able to diagnose pathology arising from dust. In the framework of the European project on nanotoxicology, we have already proved that cells that are attacked by nanodust lose their reactive defense system."
Maria Sorbi