With the arrival of warm weather, another factor worsening the epidemiological situation with coronavirus infection may appear - the flowering of plants and the fruiting of poplars. The fact is that their fluff is capable of transporting viral particles over long distances.
According to the website Lenta.ru, this danger is warned by a doctor-immunologist-allergist, candidate of medical sciences Nadezhda Loginina. According to her, if the epidemic does not subside by mid-June, then a "particularly difficult situation" may develop. The problem, first of all, is associated with poplar fluff - it is quite capable of carrying the smallest drops of moisture with SARS-CoV-2 virions in them over long distances. In addition, the allergic situation will worsen and many people suffering from hypersensitivity to pollen will be at risk: due to the already injured respiratory system, the coronavirus infection COVID-19 will pass with complications.
Poplars began to be actively planted in the centers of Soviet cities after the Great Patriotic War. It was necessary to somehow restore the destroyed vegetation and, in addition, to plant greenery in new areas under construction during the rapid increase in settlements in the second half of the 20th century. These trees grow relatively quickly and are good at filtering soil and air. But poplars also have disadvantages - after flowering, they form many seeds with fluff on them, which are carried by the wind. By themselves, they usually do not cause allergies, but they accumulate pollen from other plants and many pathogens of various infections that are collected along the ground and asphalt.
We will remind, earlier there was a lot of conflicting information about the ways of spreading the causative agent of coronavirus infection COVID-19 - the SARS-CoV-2 virus. On the one hand, it is able to remain infectious for a relatively long time on various surfaces (up to 3 hours), but at the same time, many epidemiologists deny the possibility of its "flight" over considerable distances. However, researchers at Queensland Technical University believe that the coronavirus can be airborne long enough to spread through ventilation, such as ships. This is how they explain the many cases of infection on cruise ships and in the navy, even when people were isolated in cabins.