He warns that the susceptibility of the population to the new virus is so high that even if it’s less transmissible during the warm season, it would still spread significantly even in warmer and more humid areas.
David Heymann, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who was not involved in the MIT research, said the statistical studies don’t hold up compared to how the virus is behaving so far.
“The virus is transmitting quite easily in Singapore and in Hong Kong where it is now late spring. There is nothing better than observation — if the virus has any characteristics that impede its transmission in hot and humid climates, it has not yet manifested them in the tropics,” he said.