The European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) has predicted that warmer temperatures this summer are unlikely to halt the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.
The agency said on Wednesday that despite some hopes, a summer slowdown was unlikely, stating: “There is no evidence to date that SARS-CoV-2 will display a marked winter seasonality, such as other human coronaviruses in the northern hemisphere.”
The ECDC noted that coronavirus was able to survive and spread in areas like Singapore where high humidity and tropical temperatures have not seemed to have had dramatic effects on the spread of the virus, Kathimerini reports.
Along with warning that summer is unlikely to give respite in terms of the spread of the disease, the ECDC added that by the middle of April it was likely that every European country would see its intensive care unit (ICU) beds at total capacity without any additional measures.
The agency also increased its threat level for seniors who are infected with the virus to “very high” while maintaining a moderate level for the general population as a whole.
The European Union initially dismissed the threat of the Wuhan virus in late February and refused to enact border controls when Italy, now the global epicentre of the virus, had just a few hundred cases.
Since then, the number of case in Italy has increased to over 80,000 and its death toll, now at over 8,000, surpassed that of China last week. Spain has also seen a dramatic increase in fatal cases, also surpassing that of China and totalling over 4,000 as of Wednesday.
Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen backtracked on previous EU policy, saying the EU had underestimated the scale of the coronavirus outbreak.
“I think we all, who are not experts, initially underestimated the coronavirus. But in the meantime it has also become clear that this is a virus that will keep us busy for a long time,” she said.