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Seasonality of Respiratory Viral Infections: Will COVID-19 Follow Suit?

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  • Seasonality of Respiratory Viral Infections: Will COVID-19 Follow Suit?

    REVIEW ARTICLE

    Front. Public Health, 15 September 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.567184

    Seasonality of Respiratory Viral Infections: Will COVID-19 Follow Suit?

    Amani Audi1,2, Malak AlIbrahim1,2†, Malak Kaddoura1,2, Ghina Hijazi1,2, Hadi M. Yassine3* and Hassan Zaraket1,2*
    ...

    Conclusion: Will COVID-19 Become Seasonal?

    The basic reproduction number (R0) is the number of secondary cases resulting from a primary case in a susceptible population and is an important indicator to predict the spread of a virus. For a virus to follow a seasonal pattern, and thus wane in summer, its effective R0 should drop below 1 (112). For SARS-CoV, the R0 is estimated between 2 and 3 (112) and in some estimates as high as 5.7 (113). As discussed above, several factors in the summer might reduce the effective R0 of respiratory viruses including the effect of warm tempertures and humidity on the stability of the virus and susceptibility of the host as well as behavior of the population such as indoor crowding. For seasonal influenza virus, its R0 is estimated to be 1.27 (114). Therefore, these aforementioned factors could easily drop the effective R0 to below 1 in summer halting the virus spread and resulting in the observed seasonal pattern of flu. The warm temperatures and humidity of the summer might impact the host immune response and thus its susceptibility to infection by SARS-CoV-2 similar to its effect on influenza (66). However, other factors including: (1) a much higher R0, (2) higher stability of SARS-CoV-2 (it can survive for up to 72 h on hard surfaces at temperatures between 21 and 23?C and in relative humidity of 40%) (83), and (3) a largely immunologically na?ve population against SARS-CoV-2 compared to influenza make it unlikely for the R0 to drop in summer enough to halt the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, without public health interventions, SARS-CoV-2 will continue to spread in summer as witnessed in many countries around the world. Nonetheless, as the population herd immunity is attained through natural infections and/or vaccinations then the effective R0 is expected to drop substantially making the virus more prone to seasonal fluctuations.

    ...
    Respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses, are known to have a high incidence of infection during winter, especially in temperate regions. Dry and cold co...
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