Some have speculated the coronavirus may disappear with the arrival of hot weather, similar to what happened during the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003, but Chinese experts refuted these claims, China Daily reports.

Wang Guiqiang, head of Peking University First Hospital's department of infectious diseases, said the probability of seeing a significant drop in cases in the Northern Hemisphere's summer is low.

"COVID-19 is very different from SARS and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) for it has a longer incubation period and high ratio of asymptomatic patients, Wang said. It is believed that the novel coronavirus is temperature sensitive, and can be destroyed when making contact with water above 56 C, "but weather temperatures cannot naturally reach this high."

"Given the current global pandemic situation, it is unlikely that the virus will die away this summer. At the same time, we cannot rule out the possibility of the virus returning in the fall or winter in places where people tend to gather," he said.

Wang said that scientists have yet to find any intermediate host of the virus, so a globalized, unified prevention and control effort is necessary. "So long as one country has existing cases, other countries cannot relax their measures or else there may be new cases popping up around the world throughout the year."

Jin Qi, director of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences' Institute of Pathogen Biology, agreed with Wang's assessment, saying it is misguided to believe the virus will go away in the summer like SARS did simply because they are both coronaviruses.

"People infected with SARS had clear symptoms of fever that we could efficiently identify and control," Jin said. "However, for COVID-19, there may be people who are presymptomatic, have mild symptoms, are asymptomatic or have other types of conditions. Do you really think humanity can get rid of this virus so easily?"

"It is possible that COVID-19 will become seasonal and stay with us for a long time," he added.

As a result, experts said the most effective ways to curb the virus are through vaccinations and drug development. Three vaccines-one adenovirus vector and two inactivated-have entered phase two clinical trials in China, and more research is needed to evaluate their safety and efficacy, Wang said.

He added that China is also testing convalescent plasma transfusion, stem cell therapy and monoclonal antibodies to treat the coronavirus.-Photo: Xinhua

Medical workers at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province ready to transfer a coronavirus patient to a branch hospital, on April 25, 2020.

Virus will not die down in summer, Chinese scientists say