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. 2020:20:100418.
doi: 10.1016/j.imu.2020.100418. Epub 2020 Aug 28.

Impact of meteorological parameters on COVID-19 pandemic: A comprehensive study from Saudi Arabia

Mohammad Alkhowailed  1 , Ali Shariq  2 , Fuhaid Alqossayir  3 , Osama A Alzahrani  4 , Zafar Rasheed  5 , Waleed Al Abdulmonem  6
Affiliations

Impact of meteorological parameters on COVID-19 pandemic: A comprehensive study from Saudi Arabia

Mohammad Alkhowailed et al. Inform Med Unlocked. 2020.

Abstract

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now been declared a global public health disaster with no currently available vaccine. This study was undertaken to analyse the effect of meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the spread of ongoing COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia.

Methods: The COVID-19 dashboard for five major cities of Saudi Arabia - Riyadh, Makah, Jeddah, Medina and Dammam was used for data collection. The data on weather were collected from the Weather Underground Company (IBM business GA, USA, 2020). The data were analysed by Spearman's rank correlations using JASP statistical software in two main sections. In the first section the data on COVID-19 from cities were combined to analyse the overall picture of COVID-19 and in the second section, different meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity and wind speed were analysed.

Results: Novel data revealed interesting facts on the spreading of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia, the data showed that the number of COVID-19 positive cases increases due to the decrease of temperature or humidity, whereas an average decrease in the wind speed was also found to be associated with an elevation of the number of positive cases.

Conclusions: This study determined the impact meteorological factors on the infectivity rate of COVID-19. An inverse association was found between the meteorological parameters with the spreading of COIVD-19. Therefore, this study directs the health authorities to implement specific measures against the spreading of this global pandemic based on weather patterns.

Keywords: COVID-19; Meteorological parameters; SARS-COV-2; Saudi Arabia; Weather.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Trend of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia: New cases, active cases, recovered cases, and deaths until June 7, 2020.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Positivecases of COVID-19 in major cities Saudi Arabia - Riyadh, Makkah, Jeddah, Madinah and Dammam from between May 1, 2020–Jun 7, 2020.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Combined data of five major cities on the correlation of daily COVID-19 cases with metrological parameters in Saudi Arabia.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Correlation of daily COVID-19 cases with metrological parameters per cities in Saudi Arabia.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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