Abstract
Novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which first emerged in December 2019, has become a pandemic. This study aimed to investigate the associations between meteorological factors and COVID-19 incidence and mortality worldwide. This study included 1,908,197 confirmed cases of and 119,257 deaths from COVID-19 from 190 countries between 23 January and 13 April, 2020. We used a distributed lag non-linear model with city-/country-level random intercept to investigate the associations between COVID19 incidence and daily temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed. A series of confounders were considered in the analysis including demographics, socioeconomics, geographic locations, and political strategies. Sensitivity analyses were performed to examine the robustness of the associations. The COVID-19 incidence showed a stronger association with temperature than with relative humidity or wind speed. An inverse association was identified between the COVID-19 incidence and temperature. The corresponding 14-day cumulative relative risk was 1.28 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.20-1.36] at 5 °C, and 0.75 (95% CI, 0.65-0.86) at 22 °C with reference to the risk at 11 °C. An inverse J-shaped association was observed between relative humidity and the COVID-19 incidence, with the highest risk at 72%. A higher wind speed was associated with a generally lower incidence of COVID-19, although the associations were weak. Sensitivity analyses generally yielded similar results. The COVID-19 incidence decreased with the increase of temperature. Our study suggests that the spread of COVID-19 may slow during summer but may increase during winter.
Keywords: COVID-19 incidence; COVID-19 mortality; Meteorology; Relative humidity; Temperature; Wind speed.
【저자키워드】 temperature, meteorology, COVID-19 mortality, Relative humidity, COVID-19 incidence, Wind speed, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, COVID19, pandemic, Mortality, risk, death, incidence, novel, association, Analysis, demographics, Virus Disease, confirmed case, confidence interval, Factor, 95% CI, relative, cumulative, country, confounder, wind, spread of COVID-19, Daily temperature, random intercept, highest, performed, associations, incidence of COVID-19, 【제목키워드】 Factor,