Need time to study monsoon impact on Covid: Health experts

Bhubaneswar: Amid fears the monsoon could lead to a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state, many health experts felt they would need time to study its impact given that this is the first monsoon since the virus outbreak.
Ajay Parida, director of Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) Bhubaneswar, said, “Based on studies conducted on other viruses, many experts have suggested a predictive model where the incident may increase during monsoon. But nobody is sure about this because much is unknown about the behaviour of novel coronavirus.”
Parida’s institute, in association with ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC), have launched a study on Covid-19 genome sequencing of viral strains obtained from reported cases in Odisha. He said nothing much is known about the theory that monsoon may increase Covid-19 cases. “We cannot predict anything right now. Let’s wait for the monsoon to arrive,” Parida added.
An epidemiologist said influenza like illness (ILI) cases may rise due to the wet weather. “It is very common to get cough, cold and viral fever during monsoon season. But we cannot say these people are Covid-19 infected,” the epidemiologist said.
He said the suspected cases of Covid-19 may go up, but in the absence of scientific data, it is not possible to say that Covid-19 cases will increase during monsoon. “We do not have any scientific data or study to prove it, because this monsoon will be the first one since the virus hit the world,” the epidemiologist added.
AIIMS Bhubaneswar director Gitanjali Batmanabane said she cannot presume anything about the theory at this point of time. “This is an unprecedented thing which is happening right now. We find that this is not fitting into many of the models. Some of our predictions have gone wrong. At this point of time we cannot tell whether Covid-19 cases will rise during monsoon,” Batmanabane said.
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