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As I write today’s newsletter from St. Petersburg, Florida, the temperature in my house has nearly reached 80 degrees and outside it’s slated to hit a high of 88. If this is how hot it is in spring, just wait until summer in the Sunshine State.
You might have seen some claims about the novel coronavirus that make it seem like all this sweat will be worth it. After all, the seasonal flu and milder strains in the coronavirus family tend to spike in winter and dwindle in spring as it warms up.
Will the novel coronavirus also work that way? Experts say don’t get your hopes up.
New research out of Europe suggests the pandemic may not simply vanish in the summer months, and medical experts say the virus is too new, and it’s too early in the season, to determine how it’s affected by weather and climate.
This strain appeared in China only at the end of 2019, and health experts say there’s still not enough known about what the virus will do over the course of a season.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House coronavirus task force, says it’s possible that the virus will suffer in the heat, but warns people not to count on it.
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Alex Mahadevan is a senior multimedia reporter at MediaWise. He can be reached at amahadevan@poynter.org or on Twitter at @AlexMahadevan. Follow MediaWise on TikTok.
