TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin EU does not think summer heat will slow down virus on SXM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/bgr.co...t-magically-kill-the-covid-19-virus/amp/

As St Martin and Sint Maarten are related to the European Union, the European CDC has said they do not think summer heat will slow down the virus.

Virus is doing pretty well here in SW FL where it has been 90 or close to every day....sunlight and fresh air is good for you but keeping away from others does a better job

Thanks for the article. Because this is a novel (new) coronavirus there's no question that it will still be extremely contagious throughout the year. The world's population has absolutely no immunity to this virus, and it's going to take a while before enough people are infected to create some type of herd immunity to really shut it down. Wherever large crowds gather and in congested metropolitan areas person-to-person and surface-to-person infections will continue, but if summer dew points are high enough the transmission rate from sneezing and coughing should be reduced. It's not just about the air temperature, but more so about the humidity in the air that should help slow things down a bit. Combined with social distancing and good ole common sense the numbers should begin to turn around this summer. Articles like this one are helpful, but in some ways they only result in making people more depressed and less optimistic about the eventual containment of this virus.

Sammy, your comments make sense. Are you a medical professional, or is this something you've read elsewhere?

Thanks GoKaye (Georgia, right?) ... I wish I was a medical professional, but fell short in the gray matter area! However, our youngest son Andrew (whom I have referenced on this board in the past) works for a bio tech company called MaxCyte out of Gaithersburg, MD. They recruited him to be their west coast Field Application Scientist based in California after he completed his post doc at Genentech in San Francisco. Although his primary field of research had been colo-rectal cancers, that all changed when when COVID-19 emerged as a world threat. Their company has partnered with the top pharmaceutical companies of the world (14 of them, i.e. Pfizer, Merck, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, etc.) to deliver the testing platforms necessary to research this at the molecular level and create a medicine and eventually a vaccine for COVID-19. Last week they partnered with Eli Lilly and the work is moving at a frenetic pace there. The bio tech labs of the world can study this at the molecular level and hopefully that's where the answers will be, but it will take big pharma to produce the medicine or vaccines that can be delivered on a mass scale to the world's population. He believes a vaccine will be ready by Christmas. He had spent a summer studying at MIT while an undergraduate and has told me that their scientists are fairly certain that the warmer months will slow down the spread of the coronavirus. Not stop it completely, but begin to slow it down which can hopefully "flatten the curve".

More exciting is a report that has been posted on MIT.edu that he referred to where scientists there have engineered a peptide that can be administered to a COVID-19 infected person which blocks the virus from entering the respiratory system. If this works, it would greatly reduce if not eliminate the mortality rate because it would essentially stop primary and secondary pneumonia's from developing in our lungs. So, for the sake of all of us let's hope these scientists are right.

Interesting insight. Thanks for sharing.

Yes Sammy, it's Georgia. Thanks for the information; it certainly does sound promising!

Every article I read is basically the same, but then there are differences between how much protection you need, how long it
will be around, will you be able to get it again, do you need to sanitize your groceries, etc.

I have heard some positive news about how they are expected to find a vaccine, sooner than later, and hopefully there will be a test to see if people have had it.
If we know that we have had it, we can get safely back into living our lives and helping with others.

Panama and Dominican Republic have a large number of confirmed infections. Panama 989 infections (24 deaths) and Dominican Republic 901 infections (42 deaths). Don’t know how many are locals or tourists, but it is plenty warm in these two locations.

Sammy, I agree with your statement. It seems that all the media is capable of is gloom and doom. Everything I've ever learned and understood about viral air transmission (aerosolization) is in complete agreement with what you wrote. Viruses do not spread in humid air.

Actually the Covid-19 virus does not spread in the air at all. It only is transmitted when it falls on something and then someone touches that item. It does not exist in the air.

I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as that, Elizabeth. If that were true, then why all the clamor for masks? It doesn't last in the air very long, but it is possible to breathe a droplet or get it in one's mouth and become infected that way.

With Spring in the air, those of us who suffer from Allergies will be facing the 2020 equivalent of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials at the first sneeze.

Linda, you're correct.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/30/washington-choir-rehearsal-turns-deadly-after-coronavirus-kills-2/

About midway through the article, it discusses air to air transmission.

Watch the videos of China and Italy, they know it is airborne. They are disinfecting streets, subways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcqBIaov7KY

Chinese grocery store video Feb, 2020.

This is absolutely false.

Lots of armchair health experts here. I pray some are correct and some are wrong.

In reality, it can spread both ways. If someone sneezes or coughs respiratory droplets will be emitted into the air column. If you are in a closed environment and are close enough to someone you can breathe this in and be infected. It is also quite likely that these droplets will land on surfaces and the virus will exist there for a length of time depending upon the surface. If you touch that surface and then touch your eyes or mouth out definitely you can be infected with COVID-19. That is why all of these measures are important: social distancing, frequent hand washing with soap, and strict avoidance of touching you face (as hard as that can be). The hope for the upcoming summer months is that humid air will cause the droplets to pick up moisture and fall faster to the ground, rather than linger in cooler, dryer air. It's no secret that most viruses do much better in cooler, less humid conditions. But, even more important is that during the warm weather months more people will potentially be outdoors which reduces the likelihood of the above methods of spread. I suppose we'll know for sure in he upcoming months if the number of COVID-19 cases rises sharply in the southern hemisphere as the weather begins to cool down there.

The N95 masks are always worn in hospitals but the regular masks are only a means to stop touching your face. If you have no symptoms and don't touch your face, many health officials have said there is no need to wear a mask as the virus is not in the air. It immediately falls to the surrounding objects, even the floor. Washing your hands is the most important thing. In China and some other European countries they are wearing masks all the time when going outside because of the pollution and so they think it is necessary to combat the virus.

What I'm seeing now is that one of the biggest benefits of the mask is to hopefully prevent YOU from infecting others, as much as anything. And since there are many people who are positive, but have no symptoms, that may be the advice in future, having everyone wear some type of face covering, even if it is home-made.

Masks will also help to some degree getting the virus from touching your face. However, someone like my wife who wears gas permeable contact lenses seems to always be touching her eyes and fixing her contacts. Wearing a mask won't block that, the continued advice is try not to touch your eyes. Wear your glasses instead wherever possible.

The Covid-19 virus can be in the air. Airborne transmission is considered by the CDC, NIH, and all other experts of note as the primary means of person-to-person transmission.

Masks clearly can be helpful in reducing by more than zero the risk of inhaling or coming into contact with the virus.

The true reason that the wearing of masks is not recommended for the general asymptomatic public is the fact that there are no good masks generally available and the fear is that if the CDC comes out with a recommendation that everyone should wear a mask, the supply to those in greater need of masks would be greatly compromised.

Here is decent general article about the mask issue: https://www.npr.org/sections/health...blic-health-experts-revisit-the-question

The best advice is that if you have a mask - use it when you are grocery shopping or otherwise out in public. As Dr. Fauci has said - it will not hurt you to wear one.

CDC is now reevaluating that original position. More to come in days ahead.

Unfortunately, the CDC position both in/out of the hospitals have been driven by mask (n95 and plain) and other PPE inventory levels.

With an ER nurse in the family they are literally putting their lives on the line.

In her case. only 4 people in a nationally ranked hospital ER are/were fitted and issued N95s as of 3 weeks ago. Very few hoods/face shields and other items. Unless your intubating someone you dont get it. They were told dont wear masks around the ER to cause panic and waste resources. Early last week, all the attendings had masks on full time. Nurses said what? They all wear a masks whole shift now.

Folks have been taking boxes of gloves and everyday masks out of rooms for weeks. They locked in cabinets 2 weeks ago.

Look through your old clothes and start making some masks and head coverings that cover your hair/head as well as your mouth. The chinese found their hair was contaminated. Use eyeglasses/sunglasses/safety glasses for your eyes.

Throw all of it in the washer as soon as you get back home wash you hands and take a shower.

You can order masks online with a delivery date of May mostly. A few April.

I may be wrong but I would go ahead and make some homemade masks today.

If Im wrong, ill buy everyone a Carib some day.

The mask thing seems to change from day to day. One day it is suggested, the next day it is not unless one IS sick.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Food for thought - if you look at the statistics from the above linked page it seems to indicate that in general countries located in the northern colder hemisphere are worse off than countries closer to the equator - and much worse off in some cases. You can sort the chart it by clicking any of the column headings. I focused in on cases per million people and deaths per million people. There are some outliers but it seems that the farther down the list you get (meaning less cases per million) the more you start seeing African, Middle-Eastern, Caribbean, South American and South Pacific countries. Once you get below 100 cases per million people it seems that 90-95% of the countries are south of the Tropic of Cancer. Maybe the virus just hasn't caught up with those countries yet. Or maybe the smaller populations of many of those countries helped them get a handle on things. Or maybe, the virus doesn't thrive in warmer temperatures. In any case, I'm just trying to find a glimmer of hope and I've got nothing better to do with my time. We're faring OK here on the southern border of Washington state, but I feel for the areas that are seeing their curve skyrocket and fear that it could still happen here if people get complacent.

Also, here is a heat map from John Hopkins that paints a similar picture (it might take a few seconds to fully load: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Stay safe everyone!