Role of Temperature and Humidity in the Modulation of the Doubling Time of Covid-19 Cases

Abstract

Objectives: To estimate influence of meteorological variables, notabl temperature and relative humidity, on the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Adjusted odds ratio were used to quantify the influence of temperature and relative humidity on the doubling time of the spread. Setting: The data regarding the China COVID-19 outbreak used in this work were retrieved from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard. The meteorological data was obtained using the Meteostat Application Programming Interface. Participants: No patients were directly included in this study since data were collected from internet sites. Primary and secondary outcome measures: the primary outcome measured was the number of confirmed infected and the secondary outcomes were temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and precipitation of the China provinces in the period of analysis. Results: Results indicate that the doubling time correlates positively with temperature and inversely with relative humidity. We found that, at maximum, an average temperature increase of 1C augments the doubling time in 0.090 days and an increase of 1% of relative humidity leads to a decrease of 0.072 days in the doubling time.