Countries such as Chile, South Africa and Australia are nearing their winter months, offering a preview of how the new coronavirus might affect the U.S. in a “second wave” later this year, which U.S. scientists say is all but inevitable.
The scientists and U.S. policymakers are hoping for a reprieve this summer. Warm weather and high humidity tend to reduce the spread of coronaviruses.
Still, the transmission of the virus in the Southern Hemisphere will likely intensify in colder months, allowing the pathogen to continue to circulate among humans.
The southern countries’ experience will give Americans a preview of what it’s like to combat COVID-19 at the start of influenza season.
“I believe the lessons that are learned in the experience those countries will have with potentially both diseases circulating at the same time will not only benefit their countries but will greatly benefit countries in the Northern Hemisphere who may face the same situation in six months’ time,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program, said in April.
WHO said it is vital that residents of the Southern Hemisphere get flu shots this year because of the dual challenge.
The coronavirus is a newly discovered pathogen in humans that causes COVID-19, a potentially deadly respiratory disease. It popped up in Wuhan, China, in December, and the scientific community is still trying to understand how it behaves and whether it becomes a seasonal fixture in the human population.
“Normally, Northern Hemisphere respiratory diseases move into the Southern Hemisphere during the summer because it’s their fall,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the U.S. coronavirus coordinator, told Fox News this week. “It will be very interesting to watch Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa, and Chile and Argentina to see what happens with the virus in the summertime and what’s happening to the virus here.”
Experiences in the Southern Hemisphere have been mixed.
While New Zealand took swift measures during its summer to take precautions against the virus, parts of Latin America are starting to see problems.
Brazil, which is emerging as a hot spot, has recorded over 80,000 cases and more than 5,500 deaths. The Amazon city of Manaus reportedly is digging mass graves.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, told President Trump that he is tracking travel between Brazil and Miami as the Southern winter nears.
“You’re going to probably see the epidemic increase there as their season changes,” he said at the White House this week. “We could be way on the other side, doing well in Florida, and then you could just have people kind of come in.”
He suggested screening and clearing international passengers using Abbott Laboratories’ rapid test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Mr. DeSantis said he isn’t looking to cut Brazil travel completely, at least for now.
“If you’re going to fly to Miami, then the airlines should give you the Abbott test and then put you on the plane,” he told Mr. Trump.
Officials in Buenos Aires, hoping to avoid a bad winter, have announced a ban on commercial flights to or from Argentina until Sept. 1. It’s the most aggressive ban in the region. Some other countries are pausing flights for a shorter period.
Dr. Anthony Amoroso, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, said the virus is already circulating south.
“I would strongly recommend that any vaccine trials include the population centers in these countries and that they do what they can right now to restrict travel and any ongoing transmission,” he said.
He noted government scientists’ predictions that the virus could sustain itself in the human population and surge again in the U.S. this fall.
“What we see in population centers in the ideal climate zones of the Southern Hemisphere through the months of June through September may be a very important predictor for us,” Dr. Amoroso said.
Crystal R. Watson, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it will be important to have a contact-tracing system in place to root out and isolate as many cases as possible.
“We don’t want to be put in that position again. So that’s why building this capacity is so critical,” she said.
New Zealand has been held up as a model for swift and aggressive action. Officials told anyone entering the country in early March to self-isolate for two weeks. The government banned foreigners days later and then imposed a lockdown while testing aggressively.
Though New Zealand won kudos for those efforts, it faces a key question: Will there be a relapse as temperatures cool?
“Yes, potentially — same with Australia,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor who studies tropical diseases at Baylor College of Medicine.
Still, Dr. Hotez said he is mainly concerned about reports that COVID-19 is “taking off” in Brazil and other vulnerable parts of the hemisphere.
“I’m worried for South America, South Asia and Africa, especially in the crowded urban slums of some of the new megacities in those regions,” he said. “That’s why we’re trying to make a low-cost global health vaccine.”
WHO warned Thursday that community spread of the coronavirus could devastate West African countries just north of the equator.
At least 8,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed across a dozen West African nations including Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal, according to the WHO’s count. At least 23,800 cases and 900 deaths have been reported in sub-Saharan African countries.
“We are very concerned about West Africa where we are seeing some community spread, in a significant number of countries compared with others,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s Africa region director.
Several West African countries have declared a state of emergency and have shut down schools and travel in a bid to reduce the spread. But some nations might lift restrictions on gathering, citing the economy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the Trump administration’s decision to suspend U.S. funding to WHO will hold back efforts to keep the disease from pinging around the globe.
“It’s a pandemic. It knows no borders. Even if you don’t like an institution, you have to recognize that it’s in the interest of every person in our country for the World Health Organization to succeed,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, told CNBC this week. “Especially in the Southern Hemisphere now, where there can be an opportunity to stop it from spreading like wildfire if we are thinking in more, shall we say, global terms.”
• Lauren Meier contributed to this report.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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