10 Things We Learned From Infectious Disease Expert Michael Osterholm On Joe Rogan Experience
7. What Happened To The Other Types Of Coronavirus?
A lot of reports have surfaced recently suggesting that the Coronavirus won't be able to survive when the weather gets warmer in Summer.
Yet again, Osterholm disproved this theory by providing us with examples of what happened with the other Coronaviruses we've dealt with in the past - SARS and MERS.
SARS occurred in 2003 in China and when it left China in February of that year, it took a while to figure out that the people infected weren't actually infectious until 4 or 5 days into their illness - they would then tend to 'crash and burn' or even die. It took until June to get that virus under control, after identifying symptoms and isolating the spread. Which had nothing to do with the seasons.
MERS existed in the Middle East and was found primarily in camels. The weather was 110 degrees and the virus was surviving just fine, so any talk of Summer washing away this disease is fanciful.
What makes this version of the Coronavirus so unique is the fact that you can become infectious before you're even sick, so trying to contain an infection that you're not even certain is there is 'like trying to stop the wind.'