Containing the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Meteorological factors and control strategies

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread globally and the meteorological factors vary greatly across the world. Understanding the effect of meteorological factors and control strategies on COVID-19 transmission is critical to contain the epidemic. Using individual-level data in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and the number of confirmed cases in other regions, we explore the effect of temperature, relative humidity, and control measures on the spread of COVID-19. We find that high temperature mitigates the transmission of the disease. High relative humidity promotes COVID-19 transmission when temperature is low, but tends to reduce transmission when temperature is high. Implementing classical control measures can dramatically slow the spread of the disease. However, due to the occurrence of pre-symptomatic infections, the effect of the measures to shorten treatment time is markedly reduced and the importance of contact quarantine and social distancing increases.

Modeling Coronavirus Spread Rate Utilizing Dimensional Analysis via an Irredundant Set of Fundamental Quantities

“…Equation (9a), however stresses that temperature and humidity are of secondary relevance to the virus spread rate, since they are inter-regime influences, rather than intra-regime ones. The very existence of this relevance (together with its being of limited or secondary nature only) seems to be in line with the reported disparity among the cited references [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. Qualitative reasoning [30, [35][36][37] show that, according to (9a), temperature and humidity have opposing influences on virus spread rate.…”

“…We stress that most papers surveyed stress that both temperature and humidity are of some relevance (that cannot be neglected) to the spread rate for coronaviruses, in general (and for the novel coronavirus, in particular) [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. A notable exception to the general trend in the papers surveyed is the work of Jamil et al [50], who tested the hypothesis that COVID-19 spread is temperature-dependent using data derived from nations across the world and provinces in China, and found no evidence of a pattern between spread rates and ambient temperature, suggesting that the SARS-CoV-2 is unlikely to behave as a seasonal respiratory virus.…”

Analysis of the scientific production of the effect of COVID-19 on the environment: A bibliometric study

“… Şahin (2020) also assessed the impact of weather on the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey pointing out that that wind speed 14 days prior to and the temperature of the day of the study yielded higher numbers of cases. Similarly, Lin et al (2020) identified that meteorological parameters influence COVID-19 as daily maximal temperature, wind speed and air pressure are inversely correlated with reproductive ratios. Furthermore, Tang et al (2020) explored the correlation between the average percent of positive COVID-19 in the USA and dosages of sunlight ultraviolet radiation.…”

“… Wu et al (2020) likewise report that a 1% increase in relative humidity can be linked with a 0.85% decrease in new daily cases and a 0.51% increase with a reduction of new daily deaths. Lin et al (2020) further assessed the interaction of temperature and relative humidity and their effects on the spread of the virus. Their findings indicate that high relative humidity promotes COVID-19 transmission when temperatures are low, but tends to reduce transmission when the temperatures are high.…”

Where do we stand to oversee the coronaviruses in aqueous and aerosol environment? Characteristics of transmission and possible curb strategies

“…Researchers have proposed that viruses (bacteriophages) survived well at RHs lower than 33% and at 100%, whereas their viability was significantly decayed at 55% and 75% RHs [168] . However, SARS-CoV-2 may be resistant to high temperatures and intermediate RH [169] . Found in a cluster-spreading event investigation, a patient with SARS-CoV-2 may have transmitted the virus even with temperatures from 25 to 41 °C and humidity of approximately 60% [170] .…”