The new coronavirus will not disappear like SARS, the head of the Turkish Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Alpay Azap, said, as millions wonder whether spring will help slow the disease.
Scientists, however, say it’s too soon to know how the deadly virus will behave in warmer weather.
Azap said they do not expect the warm weather to kill the virus, but it could hinder its spread significantly.
“When the air gets hot, the virus's survival time and contamination level will likely decrease,” he said.
“It is a respiratory disease. People go out when the weather gets warm, which reduces the speed of transmission,” Azap added.
Azap said with the onset of the winter season in the Southern Hemisphere, the epidemic will mostly have an impact there.
As of Tuesday, there are more than 114,000 cases worldwide. This includes more than 80,000 in mainland China, where COVID-19 originated. Of these cases, 64,000 have recovered. The total death toll has crossed 4,000. According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) estimate, the mortality rate stands at 3.4%.
While the development of vaccines is ongoing, treatments aimed at relieving symptoms have been successful in more than half of the cases.
COVID-19 produces mild symptoms in 80% of cases but for the elderly and sick, it can produce severe pneumonia and multiple organ failure. Symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath about two to 14 days after exposure, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
