It was predicted because the change in weather causes more people to be indoors, and poor indoor air circulation is a big contributing factor for spreading. Same with the onset of the hot weather and A/C in the US South in May, around the time cases started increasing there.
Also, catching Covid sucks for a lot of people, even if they survive. Encouraging people to catch it during summer seems pretty irresponsible.
I think the data shows that this coronavirus is causing drastically less illness in the past warmer months, as opposed to the months prior. This is consistent with SARS-1, other coronaviruses, as well as Influenza.
That's a different matter to the number of positive test results, which is indeed rising, but is not measuring actual illness.
We won't know if it's false until we've experienced both summer and winter in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
Yes, cases increased were high in the summer in the US, but that doesn't tell us anything about whether it will be the same, or lower, or higher in the winter.
Coronavirus is known to be less transmissible in the warmer seasons.
The long incubation period paused government intervention and bumped up the R0 value.
Also, COVID as an ongoing thing isn't great for anybody's mental health in general. I suspect there's some similarity to how crime rates go up during heat waves.
Maybe I don't understand. The number of confirmed cases is going up exponentially in all of the warm locations you mention. This is in spite of a lack of testing. How is that evidence of R < 1?
MY assumption would be that it's a combination of nice summer weather which makes social distancing easier, and all the super spreading idiots that don't comply are getting sick, recovering, and no longer able to (for the time being) continue to infect others.
are you inferring that the rise in case counts in September is somehow correlated to the summer tourism season, which is pretty well over by September? I see no evidence that points to this. surely if the summer tourism season caused a spike in cases(!), you would see it during the summer tourism season, and not afterward?
Back in February, there were a handful of cases popping up here and there. And then growing in each hotspot from 5 to 10 to 20, etc. It didn't take long for things to get out of control.
Without some major game-changer in the next two months, its hard to see a reason why the same thing won't just happen again. Hopefully over the summer it's not as contagious due to hot weather.
We are not used to such changes. And people here are not used to change from winter clothes to summer in the same day. Like I said, it's usually associated to autumns in the south (carrying both types of clothes).
Since people is not prepared correctly, the number of people I see coughing in the subway is definitely higher.
Not extreme deaths like covid, but impairs people more than usual.
Also my daughter is bringing more stuff from the school that are not learning and knowledge, but viruses of all kinds.
That's odd, earlier it was often stated that hot weather decreased covid.
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