Ashburn, VA

46°F
Location Chevron down
Location News Videos
Use Current Location
Recent

Ashburn

Virginia

46°
No results found.
Try searching for a city, zip code or point of interest.
settings
Ashburn, VA Weather
Today WinterCast Local {stormName} Tracker Hourly Daily Radar MinuteCast Monthly Air Quality Health & Activities

Around the Globe

Hurricane Tracker

Severe Weather

Radar & Maps

News

News & Features

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

Video

Podcasts

Winter Center

News & Features AccuWeather Prime Astronomy Business Climate Health Recreation Sports Travel

News / Health

CDC is hopeful weather will suppress coronavirus, others unsure of weather's role

By Mark Puleo, AccuWeather staff writer

Published Feb 13, 2020 7:03 PM EST

Copied
Live Coverage For all things weather, 24 hours a day.

The MS Westerdam has been stranded at sea since Feb. 6, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied docking in the country over fear of COVID-19.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) on Thursday confirmed the 15th case of novel coronavirus in the United States after a Chinese evacuee was flown to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The 14th U.S. case of COVID-19, the official name for the strain of novel coronavirus that has infected tens of thousands mostly in China, was confirmed on Wednesday night.

The death toll for the virus reached more than 1,500 total fatalities as of Saturday morning, the vast majority of which have occurred in mainland China. The first fatality from the virus outside of Asia was reported in France this past week, according to BBC News. The victim was an 80-year-old man visiting the country from China's Hubei province.

While the world has continued to hope that the spread of the virus will dwindle with increased temperatures in the spring, Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, cautioned that it would be "premature" to assume warmer weather will inhibit the virus.

Her remarks came days after President Donald Trump, at a rally in New Hampshire, declared that the coronavirus could "miraculously" go away "once the weather warms up."

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

"I think I would caution overinterpreting that hypothesis," Messonnier said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "Influenza has a season ... So, if this behaves similarly, it may be that as we head towards summer and, I guess, spring and summer, the cases would go down, but this is a new disease. We haven’t even been through six weeks of it, much less a year, and so I certainly would, I mean, I’m happy to hope that it goes down as the weather warms up, but I think it’s premature to assume that, and we’re certainly not using that to sit back and expect it to go away."

John Nicholls, a pathology professor at the University of Hong Kong, told financial investors on a conference call last week that he expected the virus to "burn itself out" with increased temperatures. He predicted the threat could subside by May, according to a transcript of the call that was leaked online.

But when asked by AccuWeather for further analysis, Nicholls cautioned going against the views of the CDC.

Residents wearing masks wait at a traffic light in Beijing, China Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. China is struggling to restart its economy after the annual Lunar New Year holiday was extended to try to keep people home and contain novel coronavirus. Traffic remained light in Beijing, and many people were still working at home. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

"So the question is: Will this virus behave the same as the other coronaviruses?" Nicholls said in an email to AccuWeather. "It basically has a similar structure to the other coronaviruses."

Nicholls said COVID-19 features "the same receptor as NL63," a strain of the virus discovered about 16 years ago. "And thus my hypothesis was that when summer came there should be a decrease, but I am not going against the views of the CDC."

According to Nicholls, NL63 and COVID-19 share the same receptor and therefore can be expected to behave similarly in the respiratory tract. Human coronavirus NL63 is a common form of the virus. Nicholls likened COVID-19 to a severe form of the common cold.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

When asked if the virus could experience a resurgence with the return of cold weather next fall, Nicholls didn’t offer a response.

Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, explained to NPR that not every coronavirus follows the same pattern. However, he hypothesized that the spread of the outbreak would be impacted by the change of season.

Family members of Pakistani students studying in Wuhan, China, rally outside the Chinese Consulate for the evacuation of their relatives after the Chinese city was badly hit by the coronavirus, in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudhry)

"It doesn't have that seasonality because it's really an animal-to-human virus and not something that that you see causing disease in a seasonal pattern," Adalja said. "It really is behaving like a common cold-causing coronavirus ... I do think seasonality will play a role. As this outbreak unfolds and we approach spring and summer, I do think we will see some tapering off of cases."

Citing studies that were conducted around the SARS outbreak from 2003 and previous years of coronavirus behavior, Nicholls said that if "history was any guide, then we could expect that this virus would no longer be as much of a threat as it is now in the summer."

Nicholls is not the only expert predicting that the spread of the virus will begin fading with the arrival of spring. Zhong Nanshan, an epidemiologist and senior medical adviser to the Chinese government, this week told Reuters that he believes the spread of COVID-19 will begin to wane in April.

Zhong, however, didn't say he was hinging his prediction on weather factors. Instead, Reuters reported, he based his prediction on mathematical modeling and government action. The 83-year-old doctor was a key player in reigning in the SARS outbreak of 2003 and said a major cause for concern is what's unknown about COVID-19.

"We don’t know why it’s so contagious, so that’s a big problem," he said.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.

Report a Typo
Comments that don't add to the conversation may be automatically or manually removed by Facebook or AccuWeather. Profanity, personal attacks, and spam will not be tolerated.
Comments
Hide Comments

Weather News

Severe Weather

Deadly wildfires continue to rage in Chile

Feb. 6, 2023
Winter Weather

Why sudden loud booms sometimes occur when it’s very cold outside

Feb. 3, 2023
Weather News

Old photo inspired park ranger to explore hidden history of Yosemite

Feb. 3, 2023
Show more Show less Chevron down

Topics

News & Features

AccuWeather Prime

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

Top Stories

Winter Weather

Mount Washington’s astonishing RealFeel Temp in record territory

20 hours ago

Weather News

Death toll surpasses 1,300 after 7.8 earthquake rocks Turkey, Syria

11 minutes ago

Severe Weather

Severe weather, flooding threats loom for Texas to Ohio this week

1 hour ago

Winter Weather

New weather pattern on deck in California

1 hour ago

Weather Forecasts

Spring to bring more snow chances, AccuWeather experts say

2 days ago

More Stories

Featured Topic

Tips to cope with winter weather

Featured Stories

Weather News

US fighter jets shoot down Chinese spy balloon off East Coast

1 day ago

Weather News

Cold weather testing: Airplanes endure punishing extremes

3 days ago

Live Blog

Ingredients come together for epic winter photo

LATEST ENTRY

Patience leads to epic winter photo

1 day ago

AccuWeather Health CDC is hopeful weather will suppress coronavirus, others unsure of weather's role
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs Podcast RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs Podcast RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
© 2023 AccuWeather, Inc. "AccuWeather" and sun design are registered trademarks of AccuWeather, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | TAG Disclosure | Do Not Sell My Data checkmark Confirmed Not Selling Your Data

We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

I Understand

Get AccuWeather alerts as they happen with our browser notifications.

Notifications Enabled

Thanks! We’ll keep you informed.

FEEDBACK