The effects of regional climatic condition on the spread of COVID-19 at global scale

Abstract

The pandemic outbreak of the novel coronavirus epidemic disease (COVID-19) is spreading like a diffusion-reaction in the world and almost 208 countries and territories are being affected around the globe. It became a sever health and socio-economic problem, while the world has no vaccine to combat this virus. This research aims to analyze the connection between the fast spread of COVID-19 and regional climate parameters over a global scale. In this research, we collected the data of COVID-19 cases from the time of 1st reported case to the 5th June 2020 in different affected countries and regional climatic parameters data from January 2020 to 5th June 2020. It was found that most of the countries located in the relatively lower temperature region show a rapid increase in the COVID-19 cases than the countries locating in the warmer climatic regions despite their better socio-economic conditions. A correlation between metrological parameters and COVID-19 cases was observed. Average daylight hours are correlated to total the COVID-19 cases with a coefficient of determination of 0.42, while average high-temperature shows a correlation of 0.59 and 0.42 with total COVID-19 cases and death cases respectively. The finding of the study will help international health organizations and local administrations to combat and well manage the spread of COVID-19.

Keywords: Average high temperature; Average low temperature; COVID-19; Daylight hours; Regional climate.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

The pandemic of COVID-19 over the entire world as of 5th June 2020, (a) total reported cases worldwide, (b) reported death cases worldwise, (c) reported cases per million population, and (d) reported death cases per million population.

Fig. 2

Total coronavirus cases in different countries of the world (a) Total confirmed cases per million population and (b) total death cases per million population by COVID-19.

Fig. 3

Total COVID-19 cases per million population and climatic factors, (a) Total cases per million population and average high temperature, (b) Total death cases per million population and average low temperature, and (c) Total cases per million population and average daylight hours.

Fig. 4

Shows relationship between COVID-19 cases per million population in the different countries of the world until 5th June and climatic parameters (a) average low-temperature vs a total number of death cases per million population, (b) average high temperature vs death cases per million population, (c) average low-temperature vs total number of reported cases per million population (d) average high-temperature vs total number of reported cases per million population (e) average daylight hours vs total number of death cases per million population, and (f) average daylight (hours) vs total number of reported cases per million population.