Background: Previous researches inferred that high temperatures and high humidity might weaken COVID-19 transmission. However, with the warming weather coming, the COVID-19 pandemic is still intensifying. Methods: This study aims to evaluate the associations between daily temperature, relative humidity, and COVID-19 cases using the Distributed Lag Non-linear Model (DLNM) from Jan 27th to July 15th, 2020, in California, US.Results: There was a statistically significant difference between COVID-19 and temperature from 6 °C to 9 °C, relative humidity from 80% to 98%. It increased the risk of 95.4% at 6 °C (RR:1.954; CI: 1.032-3.701). It increased the risk of 70.3% when the humidity was 98% (RR: 1.703, CI: 1.049-2.765). At low temperature group, it increased the risk of 46.3% (RR = 1.463, 95%CI: 1.054-2.030) on lag 0-4 days. At high humidity group, it increased the risk of 42.3% (RR = 1.423, 95%CI: 1.070-1.892) on lag 0-6 days.Conclusions: We found that low temperature and high humidity were the risky factors of COVID-19 transmission, and higher temperature and lower humidity had no effect on the transmission of COVID-19, which indicated that it might not slow down due to weather factors in summer in the Mediterranean climate.
Background Previous researches inferred that ‘summer’ might weaken COVID-19 transmission. However, with the warming weather coming, the COVID-19 pandemic was still intensifying. Methods This study aimed to investigate the associations between temperature, relative humidity, and COVID-19 cases using the Distributed Lag Non-linear Model (DLNM) from Jan 27th to July 15th, 2020, in California, US. Results It showed that as of July 15, 2020, there were 355 285 reported cases in California, where the temperature was between 6.33 °C and 30.72 °C and the relative humidity was between 23% and 100%. Temperature from 6.33 °C to 9 °C, relative humidity from 80–98% were the risky factors of COVID-19 transmission. It increased the risk of 95.4% at 6.33 °C (RR:1.954; CI: 1.032–3.701). It increased the risk of 70.3% when the humidity was 98% (RR: 1.703, CI: 1.049–2.765). When the temperature > 9 °C and the relative humidity < 80%, there was no statistical association. Conclusions This suggested that in winter with low temperature and high humidity, the spread of the COVID-19 would be severe due to weather factors. However, temperature and humidity were not related to the COVID-19 pandemic in summer. It did not mean that ‘summer’ would weaken the spread of COVID-19 in California. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in the winter. And it cannot be ignored in summer, otherwise, it will also cause a counterattack against the epidemic.
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