Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the effect of an increase in temperature on the (1) environmental endurance, and (2) transmission, of COVID-19.

The relationship between meteorological factors and COVID-19 hotspots, transmission (passing from one person to another), and environmental endurance (survival of the virus in the environment) have not been clarified sufficiently in any country, or globally. Much of the information currently available on transmission and the occurrence of COVID-19 hotspots relies on understanding the differences in epidemiology between other known species of human coronaviruses and COVID-19.

Carefully designed studies take time to gather observations and currently results around how COVID-19 effects its interaction with environmental, population and societal aspects are not yet available. Therefore, the current Public Health England (PHE) infection control advice assumes that the transmission characteristics of COVID-19 are similar to those of the 2003 SARS-CoV outbreak.

PHE continues to review and consider evidence on the potential association between environmental factors, including temperature, and the health impacts of COVID-19, as it emerges.