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. 2023 Mar 29;8(4):198.
doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed8040198.

Modeling the Climatic Suitability of COVID-19 Cases in Brazil

Jéssica Milena Moura Neves  1 , Vinicius Silva Belo  2 , Cristina Maria Souza Catita  3 , Beatriz Fátima Alves de Oliveira  4 , Marco Aurelio Pereira Horta  1
Affiliations

Modeling the Climatic Suitability of COVID-19 Cases in Brazil

Jéssica Milena Moura Neves et al. Trop Med Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Studies have shown that climate may affect the distribution of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and its incidence and fatality rates. Here, we applied an ensemble niche modeling approach to project the climatic suitability of COVID-19 cases in Brazil. We estimated the cumulative incidence, mortality rate, and fatality rate of COVID-19 between 2020 and 2021. Seven statistical algorithms (MAXENT, MARS, RF, FDA, CTA, GAM, and GLM) were selected to model the climate suitability for COVID-19 cases from diverse climate data, including temperature, precipitation, and humidity. The annual temperature range and precipitation seasonality showed a relatively high contribution to the models, partially explaining the distribution of COVID-19 cases in Brazil based on the climatic suitability of the territory. We observed a high probability of climatic suitability for high incidence in the North and South regions and a high probability of mortality and fatality rates in the Midwest and Southeast regions. Despite the social, viral, and human aspects regulating COVID-19 cases and death distribution, we suggest that climate may play an important role as a co-factor in the spread of cases. In Brazil, there are regions with a high probability that climatic suitability will contribute to the high incidence and fatality rates of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021.

Keywords: climate; coronavirus disease-19; humidity; precipitation; temperature.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
Distribution of climate variables used in modeling the climate suitability of COVID-19 cases in Brazil.
Figure 1
Figure 1
South America political map showing Brazil with international borders, neighboring countries and states.
Figure 2
Figure 2
COVID-19 high incidence, mortality, and fatality rates in Brazilian cities (A). In (B), health indicators above the 75% percentile for COVID-19 in the years 2020 and 2021 in Brazil.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Modeled climatic suitability for high incidence (HI) of COVID-19 in Brazil. Modeled climatic suitability (consensus model) for all seven algorithms under current climate conditions. Data used for modeling was provided by WorldClim [17]. For visualization, maps were built using QGIS version 3.16 (https://qgis.org/pt_BR/site/, accessed on 10 January 2022).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Modeled climatic suitability for mortality rate (MR) of COVID-19 in Brazil. Modeled climatic suitability (consensus model) for all seven algorithms under current climate conditions. Data used for modeling was provided by WorldClim [17]. For visualization, maps were built using QGIS version 3.16 (https://qgis.org/pt_BR/site/, accessed on January 10 2022).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Modeled climatic suitability for fatality rate (FR) of COVID-19 in Brazil. Modeled climatic suitability (consensus model) for all seven algorithms under current climate conditions. Data used for modeling was provided by WorldClim [17]. For visualization, maps were built using QGIS version 3.16 (https://qgis.org/pt_BR/site/, accessed on 10 January 2022).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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