Can Corona Virus be Killed?

Entire world is familiar with the havoc created by the Covid-19 (corona virus) pandemic and yet there is no concrete cure to this deadly virus. Since this virus has rapidly spread in most of the colder regions of the world, it has led people to believe that the virus may tend to disappear as the summer months arrive. Speculations are that this virus may wane with the increase in the temperature i.e. in the warm weather, however there is no staunch data or proof to back up this assumption.

Usually, flu spreads during the cold winter months and tends to decrease its spread in the warm months. It is suggested that the corona virus may be seasonal and there is hope that its spread may reduce as the temperature warms up. According to the research, it was found that there were various types of corona viruses out of which three show the characteristics of having winter seasonality. However, one strain of the corona virus found among patients having weak immunity systems has the tendency to grow and proliferate throughout all the seasons. Also, the fact that the virus has spread among various hot, humid regions of the world cannot be ignored.

Considering ‘corona virus’ as a variable factor here, it can be easily explained in a way that, there may be an indirect proportionality between the corona virus and temperature factor i.e. if the temperature increases it leads to the decrease of the spread of the virus. However, temperature isn’t the only factor that affects the growth of the virus.

It is quite difficult to come to a conclusion regarding this topic. Scientists and researchers tried to compare it with the other pandemic outbreaks in the past. However, each flu pandemic has had its own characteristic and they do not follow the same seasonal patterns, thus making it difficult to conclude whether high temperature will kill corona virus. For e.g. Spanish flu outbreak was the most in the summer season as opposed to the outbreaks of other flus that are influenced by cold months.

Corona virus comes under the family hierarchy of ‘enveloped viruses’. Since they are enveloped in an oily, greasy layer scientifically known as ‘lipid bilayer’, that freezes and hardens in the cool temperatures, it protects the virus thus keeping it alive for a longer time. However, chances are that this process won’t happen in places having higher temperatures, thus making it possible that the virus may diminish in hotter temperature.

Climate and temperature are of course some of the important factors because they decide the stability of the virus outside in the air once it is expelled from the person in the form of mucus i.e. while talking, sneezing or coughing. If the climate is such that it supports the stability of the exposed virus, the virus will spread rapidly. However, environmental factors are not the only factors responsible for the spread. It is the people who are the primary carriers of the virus. Thus, temperature of the person’s body too affects the virus to some extent. People should avoid coming in contact with each other because that only is the most probable solution to stop the transmission of the disease.

However, it is a fact that there isn’t ample evidence to prove that whether warm weather really kills this corona virus strain. As various regions of the world show dynamic humidity levels, it is difficult to create every possible weather in the lab to see its effect on the virus. Also, sometimes maybe the weather change is not the influencing factor but strain of virus may change due to some specific weather. Scientists have studied the real-world cases, still there is no data to backup this statement. Most types of the flus tend to stop spreading in summer; however, COVID-19 did spread in the regions of Iraq and Australia in-spite of warm weather conditions.