A group of researchers from the Barcelona Global Health Institute found out that COVID-19 has a seasonal nature of spread. Based on this, the authors of the study concludes that the coronavirus is likely to become a regular seasonal infection. The results of the study are published in the Nature Computational Science magazine.
The article notes that the key issue from the beginning of the pandemic remained, will be a COVID-19 seasonal disease or will behave equally actively throughout the year.
After analyzing the data on the rate of distribution of the disease in 162 countries at the initial stage of the pandemic, the researchers concluded that higher rates of distribution of infection are associated with lower temperatures and humidity levels. At the same time, with the growth of these climatic indicators, the waves of the epidemic weakened almost in all studied points.
These findings were correct for the first and third wave of the disease, but the second wave violates this pattern in almost all countries. Such a violation researchers explained to the resumption of tourism, mass clusters of young people and even air conditioning.
In addition, the results of the study confirmed the essential role of the transmission of coronavirus in the air, the character of which, nevertheless, also changes depending on the pore threshold – under conditions of low humidity, the particle size of aerosols decreases, and therefore the coronavirus is transmitted much more easily.