Front Public Health . Evidence That Higher Temperatures Are Associated With a Marginally Lower Incidence of COVID-19 Cases

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Front Public Health


. 2020 Jul 10;8:367.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00367. eCollection 2020.
Evidence That Higher Temperatures Are Associated With a Marginally Lower Incidence of COVID-19 Cases


Anne Meyer ¹ , Rohan Sadler ² , C?line Faverjon ¹ , Angus Robert Cameron ¹ , Melanie Bannister-Tyrrell ²



Affiliations

• PMID: 32754568
• PMCID: PMC7365860
• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00367

Abstract

Seasonal variations in COVID-19 incidence have been suggested as a potentially important factor in the future trajectory of the pandemic. Using global line-list data on COVID-19 cases reported until 17th of March 2020 and global gridded weather data, we assessed the effects of air temperature and relative humidity on the daily incidence of confirmed COVID-19 local cases at the subnational level (first-level administrative divisions). After adjusting for surveillance capacity and time since first imported case, average temperature had a statistically significant, negative association with COVID-19 incidence for temperatures of -15?C and above. However, temperature only explained a relatively modest amount of the total variation in COVID-19 cases. The effect of relative humidity was not statistically significant. These results suggest that warmer weather may modestly reduce the rate of spread of COVID-19, but anticipation of a substantial decline in transmission due to temperature alone with onset of summer in the northern hemisphere, or in tropical regions, is not warranted by these findings.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; coronavirus; humidity; pandemic; temperature.