Do you know that Sunlight & Heat can kill Coronavirus very fast? This is what City People recently discovered. Recently, a new research has confirmed this. There have been a lot of speculations about the characteristics of the novel Coronavirus currently spreading around the world like wildfire. Even some scientists have been speculating about so many things about the virus as people are depressed and seeking answers. It is a previously unknown strain of viruses and a member of the virus family called coronavirus. This is why it is called the novel coronavirus.
Though, some of the members of the coronavirus family have been known and studied very well, they may not behave exactly alike. Hence, the need for a scientific study of the novel Coronavirus before a definite statement is made about the characteristics of the virus. Various studies have been commissioned by various bodies, including the government of the United States of America to find out something about various aspect of the virus and the Covid-19 disease it itself.
The Coronavirus was slow to spread in Africa, especially the sub-Saharan part of the continent. After there has been thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of infections outside the continent with no case in Africa, scientists began to speculate about why this is the case. The coronavirus which causes the regular annual flu illness in temperate countries does not do well in hot climates like in sub-Saharan Africa and is easily destroyed by heat. This is why flu vaccines are taken during winter months in temperate climates but not sub-Saharan Africa.
Scientists expected novel coronavirus to behave the same way but nothing is certain in science until the result of studies are out. It was expected that the virus is easily killed at high temperature and it is destroyed very fast in sunlight. It was also expected that it does not survive long on surfaces, surviving for just between a few hours and a few days on packages. This was the bases for governments around the world, allowing couriers services to continue shipment of packages.
The extent to which the spread of the virus was hampered by the environment was never known until the United States government finally completed a study early this week that confirmed that the virus is easily destroyed by heat and temperature. The good news was carried by top US outlets few days ago.
The preliminary report was obtained by Yahoo News after the government-sponsored laboratory study by the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center. The details of the report confirmed what scientists have always believed and speculated. However, the study has not been peer-reviewed; hence the government is yet to release it officially.
According to the report, the novel coronavirus is destroyed very fast by sunlight, high humidity and high temperature. It concluded that the spread of the virus slows down at daytime hours but very contagious in closed spaces and areas with low humidity. The report concluded that daytime environment is low risk for transmission.
This might be exactly why the virus is spreading only slowly in sub-Saharan Africa. In comparison to the spread of the spread outside the continent, there have been fewer cases and fewer deaths. Though there is a consensus that the infection rate in a place like Nigeria is a lot more than the official figures as a result of inadequate testing, even, the World Health Organization estimates that only 20 per cent of infected people end up needing hospitalization. This is why a strong immunity is very important.
Meanwhile, people have been bathing themselves in sunlight and hot water. A lot of people have also stopped using air conditioners and drinking cold water. They want to do everything possible to be safe from the virus and by extension the Covid-19 disease.
–KELECHI OKORIE
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