QUESTION: Does climate change affect the transmission of disease to create epidemics like the coronavirus?

THE HARVARD TH CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH HAS AN ANSWER

ANSWER: We don’t have direct evidence that climate change is influencing the spread of COVID-19, but we do know that climate change alters how we relate to other species on Earth and that matters to our health and our risk for infections. As the planet heats up, animals big and small, on land and in the sea, are headed to the poles to get out of the heat. That means animals are coming into contact with other animals they normally wouldn’t, and that creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts. Many of the root causes of climate change also increase the risk of pandemics. Deforestation, which occurs mostly for agricultural purposes, is the largest cause of habitat loss worldwide. Loss of habitat forces animals to migrate and potentially contact other animals or people and share germs. Large livestock farms can also serve as a source for spillover of infections from animals to people. Less demand for animal meat and more sustainable animal husbandry could decrease emerging infectious disease risk and lower greenhouse gas emissions. We have many reasons to take climate action to improve our health and reducing risks for infectious disease emergence is one of them.

TRANSLATION: We don’t know the answer and there is no way to relate climate change and epidemia but since the coronavirus epidemic happened during the global warming era maybe it’s safe to assume that there is a causation relationship and risky to assume that there isn’t.

So the answer is yes although the real answer is that we don’t have a clue.