Covid could become a seasonal disease, UN says

United Nations - Expert says during first year of pandemic, infections in some places rose in warm seasons.

Covid-19 appears likely to develop into a seasonal disease, the United Nations said Thursday, cautioning though against relaxing pandemic-related measures simply based on meteorological factors.

More than a year after the novel coronavirus first surfaced in China, a number of mysteries still surround the spread of the disease that has killed nearly 2.7 million people worldwide.

In its first report, an expert team tasked with trying to shed light on one of those mysteries by examining potential meteorological and air quality influences on the spread of Covid-19, found some indications the disease would develop into a seasonal menace.

The 16-member team set up by the UN' World Meteorological Organization pointed out that respiratory viral infections are often seasonal, "in particular the autumn-winter peak for influenza and cold-causing coronaviruses in temperate climates."

"This has fuelled expectations that, if it persists for many years, Covid-19 will prove to be a strongly seasonal disease," it said in a statement.

Modelling studies anticipate that transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease, "may become seasonal over time".

Trigger?

But Covid-19 transmission dynamics so far appear to have been influenced mainly by government interventions like mask mandates and travel restrictions, they said, rather than the weather.

The task team therefore insisted that weather and climate conditions alone should for now not be the trigger for loosening anti-Covid restrictions.