A new article in Yahoo News interviewed ESSIC Assistant Research Scientist Augustin Vintzileos on the link between COVID-19 and climate.
Last Spring, Vintzileos collaborated with ESSIC/CISESS scientist Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, Mohammad Sajadi from University of Maryland School of Medicine, and collaborators from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences on an article that connected the spread of COVID-19 and a narrow east and west pattern roughly along the 30-50° N” zone.
In the Yahoo article, Vintzileos discusses the “mobility factor” of the virus, which prevents it from disappearing in the summer months despite being weakened by sunlight and warmth.
“For example, high temperature and humidity in the South make people go indoors where the air circulates through air conditioning,” says Vintzileos, “What I’m saying is that the apex of climate is much more complicated than we are discussing now.”
Vintzileos works primarily on understanding the physics and predictability of climate variations and trends. His interests include numerical modelling and new approaches for analyzing big data volumes. He synthesizes new knowledge to develop operational forecasting systems that have societal benefits. Last year, he developed a website that acts as an experimental monitoring and forecasting tool for excessive heat and its impacts on human health. The site, http://excess-heat.org/, is updated daily and forecasts and archives extreme heat events across the world.
To read the Yahoo article, click here: “Why didn’t summer kill the coronavirus? Experts explain what White House officials were missing”.
