Could cold weather impact the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19? A new study shows that the virus thrives in the cold and breaks down when exposed to warmer temperatures.
According to researchers, it only took moderate temperatures to break down the structure of the virus, while humidity had very little impact. The study suggests that the colder the temperatures, the longer the virus survived and remained infectious on surfaces.
The study findings line up with previous observations of other coronaviruses that appear to infect more people during the winter months.
"You would expect that temperature makes a huge difference, and that's what we saw,” said Michael Vershinin, assistant professor at the University of Utah and co-senior author of the paper. “The packaging of the virus was completely destroyed by even moderate temperature increases. What's surprising is how little heat was needed to break them down — surfaces that are warm to the touch, but not hot. The packaging of this virus is very sensitive to temperature."
Source: Science Daily December 18, 2020