In recent weeks, one of the hottest questionsabout the coronavirus has been focused around, quite literally, temperature.

President Trump has suggested that the coronavirus outbreakwill be gone by April because the heat generally speaking kills this kind of virus, as reported by USA Today. He has appointed Vice President Pence to take charge of the U.S. response to the disease.

But, will the coronavirus be responsive to seasonal changes similar to the flu?

In short, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the spread of the disease will abate with warmer weather. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that at this time, it is not known whether the spread of COVID-19 will decrease when weather becomes warmer.

COVID-19 is different from the virus strains that cause the flueven though it can lead to similar symptoms of respiratory problems.

So, to glean some insights, we needto look backwards to comparable outbreaks.

TheSARS epidemic, which spread in 2002 across Asia, started in November and continued into July. The outbreak was contained comparatively quickly only 8,000 people worldwide were infected.

MERS began in September 2012 in Saudi Arabia, a country with relatively higher temperatures. We dont see too much evidence of seasonality in MERS, Stuart Weston, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, toldNational Geographic.

TheCDCsays it is is simply too soon to know howCOVID-19 will react when it first encounters warmer springtime temperatures.

Read more from the original source:
Trump says coronavirus will die off in warmer weather. Is he right? - The Hill