Dr Yousuf Ali Al mulla
People in some countries, these days were able to see the beauty of what is known as (Ring of Fire) solar annular eclipse. So, people began to ask and research in the hope that such a phenomenon or high temperature during summer may lead to the weakening or disappearance of coronavirus. It seems that there is an impression that there is some slowdown in the outbreak in the summer, but it will not necessarily prevent a mild outbreak throughout the summer in the southern hemisphere.
The father of medicine, Hippocrates explained that different diseases follow different pattern. Some peak in the beginning or end of winter. Others are specific to spring, summer or winter. There are diseases that occur at different times in different regions in the world ,but also other viral illnesses are not affected at all by the seasons of the year.
Generally speaking, sunlight includes three types of Ultra-violet rays, however what is important to us to know that the third type of UV radiation, named Ultraviolet C is able to destroy the genetic material whether in human cells or in viral particles and luckily we are rarely exposed to this type because the Ozone layer in the atmosphere, prevents it from reaching sensitive skin. Unfortunately no research yet has been done on the effect of UV-C radiation on the novel coronavirus.
Nevertheless, previous studies have shown that it is possible to use these rays against other coronavirus type such as SARS, as their radiation harms the genetic material of these viruses, thereby preventing the ability of the virus to reproduce itself.
As a result, highly concentrated UV-C radiation is used to combat the COVID-19 but not directly in human. For instance, some countries use robots to disinfect hospitals floors or public buses using same rays .Of course, UV-C is very harmful and cannot be exposed to human. Looking that a person may suffer a burn to his skin due to sunlight after exposure to UV type B for hours, while radiation of type C, is able to burn the skin within seconds!
On other hand, other studies found that the longer the influenza virus particle exposed to the sun and the more concentrated their rays, the weaker the virus’s ability to infect. Unfortunately, when I looked deeply to such studies, it seemed that studies examined influenza suspended in air, not dry virus particle on surfaces.
Interestingly, it is not possible to rely on the sun’s rays alone to get rid of the virus, because it is not known till now, how long it takes to nullify the ability of the virus using sunlight nor the concentration needed to eliminate the virus. Not to mention too, that weather and geographic location vary in latitude. All this could makes sunlight an unsecured way to eliminate the virus!
In fact, there is an important point also to mention here, about the hypothesis that COVID-19 is a seasonal pandemic, which might be difficult to verify at least till now. What I mean here that isolation was complete when temperature and sunlight were rising in some countries, thus it is difficult from my view to distinguish between the impact of seasons and the effects of isolation on previous weeks in slowing down of such pandemic.
May be its clear till now though many observations, that the virus is spreading quickly whatever the weather. However the flu virus does not cause a pandemic at all in summer for instance in Europe, but it cause throughout the year in some part of our region and in the tropics. Moreover, some studies suggested that coronavirus in the coming autumn and winter seasons could open the door to more threatening events, with high risks of resurgence of the pandemic with cold weather!
Recently, some labs and experiments suggested that warming and humidity could reduce the survival of the virus, however we need to realize that simulated environment in the labs do not always have the conditions that the virus will encounter in real life. Hence, the people should not presume it is safe nowadays because it warm outside. Still we need to follow the instructions to slowdown the spreading of the virus.
Factually, I could say here that even if the summer season reduce the rate of the infection, this decrease might be not enough to stop the outbreak. When there are very large amount of the virus and with large number of population that are not immune to it, even then if some virus particles lose their potency, still enough viruses will remain and continue transmitting the infection.
At end, we cannot count on the fact that the summer will allow life to return to normal, as we do not have yet a confirmed scientific documentation about the seasonal characteristic of COVID-19. Also it is a new virus and still people do not have immunity to it, thus the slow rate of infection possibly in summer, does not mean the end of the pandemic, and If you could agree with me here, it looks like the discussion about the seasonality of the virus is still only assumptions!
Dr Yousuf Ali Al Mulla is a physician, medical innovator and educator.
