More Transmission

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: Do we need to be concerned about more Sars-CoV2 transmission this fall in the Northern hemisphere? Elizabeth Tracey reports

As the pandemic began in the much of the world this spring, cooler temperatures have emerged as one factor leading to higher rates of transmission of Sars-CoV2, according to research by Adam Kaplin, a researcher and psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues. Kaplin says temperature alone isn’t the whole picture.

Kaplin: It’s not all one thing or another but what I think it’s saying is that if you currently are in a place where your social intervention has you at this stable place, as it gets cooler it’s not going to be enough. It’s going to start to take off. So we know that when we stop the social interventions it has begun to go up again, but the rate at which it is going up I think it going to increase as it gets cooler. :30

Kaplin says renewed emphasis on avoiding crowds and use of masks is at minimum a prudent strategy to avoid infection. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.