Many are convinced that the COVID-19 virus will die down as temperatures rise; however, experts say it is very possible that the heat won’t stop the growing of the pandemic all together.

Illnesses such as the flu have proven to be seasonal, being that they diminish as warmer months approach. On the other hand, experts such as Stuart Weston, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, are still at a loss on how the coronavirus will react to heat and humidity. 

Weston said in an interview with National Geographic, “I hope it will show seasonality, but it’s hard to know”.

In regards to what we can expect in the summer, Dr. William Schaffner, an Infectious Disease Specialist at Vanderbilt University, said we can’t get our hopes up too much. 

Schaffner said in an interview with Live Science, “It’s unreasonable, I think, at this point to expect that the virus will quote-on-quote disappear during our summer months.” 

With this in mind he said there is hope, but it’s important to take the unknown into consideration.

In order to minimize our uncertainty of the future, physicists all over the world have been working diligently towards finding the answers we need like how the virus will react in warmer weather. 

The first professionals who were  able to work on this question were physicists at the University of Utah. Vershinin, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, explains what they are doing with their grant to investigate: “We’re making a faithful replica of the virus packaging that holds everything together. The idea is to figure out what makes this virus fall apart, what makes it tick, what makes it die,” said Vershinin. 

He later elaborated on the fact that this isn’t a vaccine, and it won’t completely solve the problem. However, it’s a big step in understanding what we can expect in the summer.

Taking these professionals’ ideas into consideration, it is reasonable to be unsure on what we can expect from the Coronavirus in the near future. Although it is safe to say that it isn’t a given that the virus will slow down when warmer weather hits, and that practicing social distancing is still a priority.