The Coronavirus

[pbrower2a]

(05-28-2020, 07:21 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-28-2020, 07:12 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-28-2020, 07:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: Not mentioned recently, but still to the point: it's getting warmer.  Let's assume that temperature has no direct effect on the virus, it certainly does on the people -- cooped-up for weeks and sick of it.  As we move our lives outdoors more and more, the ease of infection drops in tandem.  That will reverse in the Fall, so let's not get too far over our skis. Apparently, that's exactly the case in Brazil, where the seasons are changing in reverse to ours, and COVID-190 infections are rising rapidly.

Except Brazil is right near the equator.  Climate swings there shouldn't be as large a factor.  That they are having trouble indicates the bug does not have a lot of problems with heat.

Brazil is certainly less temperate than the US, but it's still seasonal in the social sense of the term. If it isn't the social effect of an arriving Fall, then it's a mystery to me why this is starting now.  I haven't heard much about countries further south, like Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

The seasonality of Brazilian climates is mostly of rainfall. Brazil is nowhere far enough from the equator to have the fire-and-ice climates of the American Midwest as in Chicago and Omaha (Dfa) in which summers are hot as is typical in tropical climates but winters are cold enough for persistent snow in the winter. The southernmost part of Brazil has climates characteristic of the highest parts of the southern Appalachians in the highlands; lowlands in southern Brazil are more analogous to central and northern Florida. 

(Really, if "temperate" suggests "moderate", then there is nothing "moderate" about places such as Kansas City that have brutally-hot summers like those of Dallas and winters like those of Warsaw, Poland). I call a Dfa climate, whether at its more pole-ward fringe (Minneapolis, Detroit) or its more equator-ward  fringe (Indianapolis) "fire and ice". 

The real problem in Brazil is extreme poverty in the favelas, the slums around Brazil's giant cities. Reliable running water is a commonplace lack for Brazil's poor. Frequent washing with soap and water does much to kill the COVID-19 virus by destroying the outer membrane of the virus and causing its disintegration before the virus can cause infection.  Because soap is not a harsh chemical it can give us the impression that it does little more than facilitate the removal of dirt and germs. It kills viruses, so it is not simply the passive cleaner that many of us think it is.