Historical coronaviruses show evidence of seasonality & immunity

Using historical data, a UCL research team has found that levels of infection from three common coronaviruses appear to have followed a seasonal pattern in England, with peaks occurring during winter and broadly at the same time as influenza. The researchers found that only small amounts of coronavirus were transmitted in the summer. The study, published today in Wellcome Open Research as a pre-print ahead of peer review, uses data from the Flu Watch community cohort study from 2006 to 2011. First author Dr Rob Aldridge (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) said, "COVID-19 is a disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV2, but other related viruses have been around for some time. When we began data collection in 2006 there were at least three commonly circulating coronaviruses in the UK." He and his colleagues used data their team had previously collected from the cohort study to understand whether there were greater numbers of infections caused by these coronaviruses in the winter or summer. They also looked at whether people got infected with these common coronaviruses more than once, knowing this information can show whether people developed immunity to the virus. "Our findings support the idea that in the UK we could see continued but lower levels of coronavirus transmission in the summer, but this may reverse in the winter if there is still a large susceptible population at that point," Dr Aldridge said.