Gorman writes: "The homebound and virus-wary across the Northern Hemisphere, from President Trump to cooped-up schoolchildren, have clung to the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic will fade in hot weather, as some viral diseases do."
A New York Fire Department EMT wheels a patient into an emergency arrival area at Elmhurst Hospital during the coronavirus outbreak in Queens, N.Y., on Monday, April 6, 2020. (photo: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
Summer Heat May Not Diminish Coronavirus Strength
09 April 20
A new report, sent to the White House science adviser, says the country should not rely on warm weather to stop contagion.
he homebound and virus-wary across the Northern Hemisphere, from President Trump to cooped-up schoolchildren, have clung to the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic will fade in hot weather, as some viral diseases do.
But the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, in a public report sent to the White House, has said, in effect: Don’t get your hopes up. After reviewing a variety of research reports, a panel concluded that the studies, of varying quality of evidence, do not offer a basis to believe that summer weather will interfere with the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic may lessen because of social distancing and other measures, but the evidence so far does not inspire confidence in the benefits of sun and humidity.
The report, sent to Kelvin Droegemeier, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House and acting director of the National Science Foundation, was a brief nine-page communication known as a rapid expert consultation.
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