The threat of global infection due to coronavirus continues for the fourth consecutive year. For the recent cases, the mutated JN.1 sub-variant of Omicron is believed to be the main reason for the increasing cases. Within a month, due to this variant, a huge increase in active cases of Corona is being recorded in many other countries including China, Singapore, and India.
Studies have shown that the infectivity rate of this variant is high, and like other variants of Omicron, it is also being successful in easily dodging the immunity created by the vaccine in the body. Given the increasing risks of infection, the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified it as a 'Variant of Interest'.
The Corona infection, which started in China in December 2019, is still not stopping even after four years. Due to herd immunity created due to vaccination, the risk of serious diseases among people is less, but the virus continues to mutate. In such a situation, the big question is why coronavirus cases start increasing every time in November-December. Let us understand this.
The threat of Corona is increasing once again
In the year 2023, the pace of Corona was seen to be quite controlled. Given the decreasing cases of infection globally, in May, WHO removed Corona from the list of 'Global Health Emergency'. However, as the year ended, a new type of virus raised concerns for the health sector in many countries.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, questions have been raised about whether this virus starts decreasing as the summer increases and takes a new form in the winter and starts increasing the infection. Different analyses regarding this have also come out in studies.
Increasing cases of infection in December
The first case of infection with SARS-CoV-2 virus was reported in China at the end of 2019. Corona was completely new, due to which the cases of infection increased rapidly globally by February-March. After this, there was a mutation in the virus till December 2020, after which an increase in the pace of infection was again reported due to Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants. The Delta variant is considered to be the most infectious and deadly to date, due to which the number of deaths has increased the most worldwide.
A year later, in December 2021, the Omicron variant of Corona was seen, which was not a very serious pathogen in nature, so restrictions started being relaxed. December of 2022 also saw mutations in Omicron and the emergence of sub-variants such as BA.2 and BA.5. The same sequence continues in December 2023, now a new sub-variant JN.1 has emerged.
Corona's connection with winter
The research was conducted at Australia-based Victoria University to understand whether the winter season is most favorable for the spread of coronavirus. Researchers found that the nature of the virus is to survive longer in low sunlight, and low temperature environments. Therefore, viruses active in the environment start mutating and increasing rapidly during the winter months.
Similarly, another study conducted in the year 2020 tried to understand the relationship between coronavirus and low humidity. In this, researchers noted that even a 1% decrease in humidity could lead to an increase of up to 6% in Covid-19 cases.
What do health experts say?
Talking to Amar Ujala, Dr. R.N. Singh, a senior doctor treating corona patients in the intensive care unit, says that the nature of the virus is going to increase in winter, and in the months of November-December, people spend most of the time in closed homes. It is spent in the office. In this, there is more close contact with each other, in such a situation, if even one person gets infected, there is a risk of it increasing very rapidly. This could also be a possible reason for the increase in Corona cases with the onset of winter.
(PC: Freepik)
