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The Goldilocks Virus? Potentially Some Good News
A study by researchers at the University of Maryland (which appears to still be under review, for what it’s worth) offers some insights into the coronavirus which, if accurate, are comforting. The theory also explains so much of the seemingly bizarre behavior of the virus — how the once-reassuring down-slope of the bell curve of daily deaths suddenly turned upward, and how C-19 flares up so horribly in certain spots, like north Italy and north Iran now, and Wuhan earlier, while never taking off in areas in the Northern Hemisphere which appear equally vulnerable to a flu-like bug. Please read the study yourself because I don’t want to misrepresent it, especially since it appears not to have been formally released yet, but here’s my own crude synopsis to spark your interest:
The virus truly thrives, it seems, only in locations which remain over a long stretch of time at lower humidity and within a tight temperature range ( 39F-52F), and without ever dropping below zero. Fortunately, it’s relatively rare for single locations to remain consistently within such a “just right” zone for a long enough duration (six weeks or so) for the virus to really burrow in, let alone locations which also happen to contain high-population centers. But Milan has. Qom too. And, of course, C-19’s birthplace, Wuhan, until it warmed a bit and the virus dissipated (No, the dissipation wasn’t due to the draconian interventions of the government, at least not primarily). Accordingly, so the theory goes, the most vulnerable spot in the U.S. for the last month has been Seattle, and sure enough, that’s where all our action has been.
What would be the happy implications if the theory holds? For one, the growing conventional wisdom that Europe is “Italy minus two weeks” and the U.S. “Italy minus 3 weeks” is not so. We simply do not share the perfect-storm set of vulnerabilities of north Italy. Yes, Europe and the American Midwest and Northeast will be heading into the climate sweet spot in the coming weeks– and that will surely cause some difficulties– but we’ll likely exit the zone too rapidly for a cascade of misery to occur. Also, here in the Midwest at least, and I suspect in Europe as well, we tend to jump wildly along the thermometer in our transition to spring: It was in the 60s last week here on the west side of Cleveland, we had frost yesterday, and it’s 60 again today. That’s a left, right, left to the chin of the virus.
I hope this provides some comfort; I know people are scared. Spring can’t get here soon enough, and a frost or two along the way would be good too.
Published in General
Very interesting paper. I hope their assessment prove accurate. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Please update us on status (if it passes review).
This is great news if correct. Thanks for the post Scott.
This is the kind of information if true that can stop the Panic dead in it’s tracks.
A pharmacy tech module I took on the flu a few years ago made the point of trying to keep humidity up as a deterrent to the spread of the flu, so I would buy that lower humidity helps the transmission.
Is Seattle a site of low humidity over this period? I know it rains a lot there is why I ask.
Hey, Scott! Haven’t seen you in ages. Hope you’re well. This is a very interesting theory and worth watching as the seasons change throughout the affected areas. One thing I haven’t seen discussed, including in a session on the topic I attended yesterday, is UV sensitivity. Many pathogens that are highly UV sensitive will cease, or at least greatly decrease, transmission once the weather warms up and people start spending more time outdoors. That’s a good part of seasonality of many diseases and also why the sanatorium model worked so well for interrupting tuberculosis transmission long before any antibiotics were available for treatment or prevention. Thanks for finding and sharing this interesting, and encouraging, paper.
Hi Scott. Haven’t seen you since you created our flower beds a few years ago! Article sounds fascinating and I’m eager to read it. You’re right about Cleveland weather bouncing up and down. Maybe that’s why we’ve had only three cases of infection in Cuyahoga County for the last week, and no observed spread of the virus since then.
Living in Arizona I hope high heat and low humidity works! This is the first time I can’t wait for the end of winter here and look forward to 110 degree days as soon as possible.
So climate change will save us?
Hi Caryn and Steve! (And everyone else…) Busy at the moment but will be back to comment later. Glad people agree this is very promising news….
It’s not conventional wisdom, just the math of this pandemic. See here at 03:00. But I am praying you’re right.
I noticed that three states have no known cases, Maine, Iowa and West Virginia. Any idea how these states would fit the scenario?
What about cruise ships? I have seen that 47F is a temperature that leads to high transmission of regular flu. My theory is tear ducts. Looking forward to summer.
More good news, I hope: https://buzzfeed.thenews-zone.com/2020/03/cure-for-corona-virus-announced-in.html.
Coronavirus treatment based on HIV anti-retrovirals.
On the sensitivity of conventional flu to UV light, see this article:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180209100701.htm
Scott,
Most interesting Scott. This would be very very good news if true. If true, most of the other infections elsewhere would come from travelers coming from the fertile coronavirus locations you just described. Mr. Trump’s emphasis on travel bans would then be maximally appropriate.
We should then all pray for “climate change”. At least to have the climate change out of the coronavirus sweet spot.
Regards,
Jim
Harris County (Houston) hosts a large international community and swamp-like humidity. If that theory is correct, the virus won’t gain a foothold here. We’ll see.
Of the three cases in the Cleveland area I mentioned before (the only Corona cases in all of Ohio), two are between a couple who caught the virus while visiting Egypt and brought it back to Cleveland. The governor declared a State of Emergency (I think stupidly) over this.
Snirtler: “The math of this virus” is just too glib a term to be useful. Events, say weather, intervene to stop exponential growth. (Otherwise, as Musk said sarcastically the other day, this thing will soon consume the mass of the known universe). Weather affects regions in a variety of ways and at a variety of times. It does not at all follow, therefore, that one graphed projection of the virus will apply to all situations. Math is one tiny factor in a vast array.
I never found that “Italy minus x” stuff compelling. There are cities all through the virus’s path that had an Italy-like initial arc yet avoided Italy’s fate almost entirely, which of course is why Italy and a couple other hot spots are so notable. The line is absurdly simplistic but it’s being repeated so frequently that it’s now widely unquestioned as true.
There are no confirmed cases in Montana either. Too blooming cold. Tomorrows temps are expected to be 28F-10F
Aaron, Dixie is almost certainly home free, aside from sporadic cases here and there. Heat has always been assumed to be a C-19 killer, or should have been. The study points out that the area that had the most human exchange with Wuhan before its quarantine was Bangkok, yet it’s been more or less free of infection. “Houston, you don’t have a problem!”
To me what’s most interesting about the study is how freezing temps seem to inhibit the virus. Sickly, aged, backward Russia, bordering China, would’ve seemed a perfect candidate for a nasty flu-like bug. Yet C-19 didn’t have any more luck traversing a frozen Russia than Napoleon or Hitler.
And periodic freezes seem to have shielded most of the US as well, thankfully.
An aside: I honestly can’t retrace how I stumbled upon this study — it was a link to a link to a link rabbit hole I went down late last night. But it seems so compelling that I can’t believe it’s not being reported anywhere. Or maybe it is and I haven’t noticed??
In any event, I wish it would be rolled out in a dramatic way soon to calm a nerve or two or three million.
UPDATE: The study is now linked in a blog post at Powerline this morning. We’re getting there…
Still no cases in Alaska. Idaho and Montana, like Alaska, and also without cases, probably benefit from low population density, too.
Something else I want to put out there that’s slightly off topic, but not really:
Last month through a strange set of circumstances my wife and I found ourselves dealing with serious matters at two major hospitals in the U.S. The competence and grace under pressure of the doctors and staff were awe inspiring, as I know is the case at hospitals all over the country.
I have every confidence that as I type this those same people are ramping up to meet the challenge that’s coming, and I’m so positive we’re in good hands. There’ll be suffering and many heartbreaking stories, and likely many hundreds of elderly Americans will die. But we have the greatest medical personnel and facilities in the world, and they got this, and they’ll be healing people in a way that will be the envy of everyone unlucky enough not to be here.
Snirtler, that is good news in comment 13. I have the feeling the seriousness of this thing will result in innovations on a faster timeline than typical. Fauci has been floating that it’s unrealistic to expect a vaccine for 18 months, but brilliant, creative people, and lots and lots of American dollars, will be on the case, and I’ll be surprised if that nut isn’t cracked before the virus emerges again next year — if, that is, it survives in the Southern Hemisphere, which is no sure thing (so says the study).
Plenty of pop density here in the Treasure Valley in Idaho, but we seem to be benefiting from being the most isolated major metro area in the country. However, our friends in public health/safety jobs are assuming that it is already here or soon to arrive, and are acting accordingly. Local school districts and colleges are still in session, but this week many did trial runs of online classes, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that become the rule after spring break, which starts next week.
Being in the 60+ category, we’ve cut back outings significantly, limiting to volunteer work where we are contributing significantly. Moving grocery shopping to late evening hours and all other buying to online, except a couple of major purchases in progress.
Yes, glib indeed. Guilty.
To be less so, apart from the weather factor you’ve focused on here which we hope will stop exponential growth, what we’ve also seen in those places that have curbed the growth of new cases is out-sized interventions (a term that should make our good conservative hearts shudder). In China, the lockdown of Wuhan and 15 other cities, boarding people up in their buildings, etc. In South Korea, the massive testing effort–190,000 tests as of March 11th, the innovation of testing drive-throughs, the capacity to do 20,000 tests/day with a 6- to 24-hour turnaround, broad-based screening that included those who were asymptomatic. (Here’s the link to my source; the article is fascinating in its details.)
So what is the US prepared to do (materially and morally)? For some, measures like shutting down large gatherings like sporting events, concerts, business and trade conferences are too much, an over-reaction, even though in places which have seen extensive community spread like New Rochelle, Santa Clara, and Seattle, those are exactly what the epidem experts recommend. I mention this because elsewhere a member mentioned the sudden proliferation of armchair epidemiologists. Fair point. But the measures I list above are the very proposals of folks who have skin in the game.
To add to my point about paying attention to those who have skin in the game, I just saw this in the WSJ. Hospitals are gearing up for a severe test of their capabilities.
If hospital capacity is found wanting in the US, that can’t help flatten the curve or hasten the inflection point.
I take your point.
Snirtler, thx for all that good stuff. My hunch (and I make no claim it’s more than that) is that the combo of climate suitability and dense population dwarfs all other factors, including gov’t interventions. There have been a wide variety of responses but I can discern no pattern to their effects. Wuhan had the most draconian measures but do we say they were effective when to date that city has 60%of all deaths worldwide? Maybe they were, or maybe it just got warm, and they’d still be stacking bodies there if it hadn’t. Or if Milan had a testing regime as comprehensive as Korea’s, would it have made a difference? Possibly, or maybe the rapid cascade of death would’ve come regardless and the testing would’ve just tied up valuable personnel who’d be better used in triage. Likewise did Korea have the luxury of slow, methodical testing only because they weren’t overrun?
I don’t know these answers for certain but I strongly suspect if a city is unlucky enough to be perfectly ripe for this thing, then it’s gonna come hard and we can affect it only on the margins.
We had crickets out chirping tonight here in West Texas, because the weather’s been so warm in the past five days, with temperatures still around 65-70 degrees at midnight. Even for down here, that’s weird mid-March weather, but if it helps lower the spread of coronavirus, I’m fine with it hanging around for a while.
Here is something that I don’t understand. If the temperature range for the virus to thrive is 39 -52F, then how does it survive in a human being who is 98.6F?
Probably a simple answer that can be provided only by brighter minds than me