Air transportation, population density and temperature predict the spread of COVID-19 in Brazil

Abstract

There is evidence that COVID-19, the disease caused by the betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is sensitive to environmental conditions. However, such conditions often correlate with demographic and socioeconomic factors at larger spatial extents, which could confound this inference. We evaluated the effect of meteorological conditions (temperature, solar radiation, air humidity and precipitation) on 292 daily records of cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the 27 Brazilian capital cities during the 1st month of the outbreak, while controlling for an indicator of the number of tests, the number of arriving flights, population density, proportion of elderly people and average income. Apart from increasing with time, the number of confirmed cases was mainly related to the number of arriving flights and population density, increasing with both factors. However, after accounting for these effects, the disease was shown to be temperature sensitive: there were more cases in colder cities and days, and cases accumulated faster at lower temperatures. Our best estimate indicates that a 1 °C increase in temperature has been associated with a decrease in confirmed cases of 8%. The quality of the data and unknowns limit the analysis, but the study reveals an urgent need to understand more about the environmental sensitivity of the disease to predict demands on health services in different regions and seasons.

Potential sources, modes of transmission and effectiveness of prevention measures against SARS-CoV-2

“…Huang et al described that 60% of all COVID-19 cases are found in places with an air temperature between 5 °C and 15 °C [105]. In Brazil a 1 °C increase in temperature has been associated with a decrease in confirmed cases of 8% [106]. In Wuhan and Xiaogan temperature was the only meteorological parameter constantly but inversely correlated with COVID-19 incidence [107].…”

Pre-to-post lockdown impact on air quality and the role of environmental factors in spreading the COVID-19 cases - a study from a worst-hit state of India

“…Furthermore, since the beginning of this outbreak, numerous researches have been going on to understand the factor affecting the transmission of SARC-CoV-2, in particular trying to find the link of host immunity, population density, and climate/environmental conditions (Pequeno et al 2020;Wu et al 2020a, b;Li et al 2020). Air pollution is known to cause numerous respiratory diseases and it is the longer the exposure, the higher is the risk theory (Gorai et al 2016); therefore, there has been considerable interest in understanding whether ambient air pollutants such as PM 2.5 , PM 10 , NO x , and CO are associated with the incidence of the COVID-19 (Zoran et al 2020;Li et al 2020).…”

Effects of long-term exposure to air pollutants on the spatial spread of COVID-19 in Catalonia, Spain

“…acute) exposure (measured as the temporal variation of air pollutants), Xu et al (2020) (in 33 locations in China), Zhu et al (2020) (in 120 cities in China), Jiang et al (2020) (3 cities in China), Li H et al (2020) (2 cities in China) and Adhikari et al (2020) (in Queens, New York) found significantly positive associations between the short-term exposure to air pollutants with newly confirmed cases. Furthermore, as Domingo et al (2020) point out, in a very recent review, the results of most of the studies suggest that the long-term exposure to air pollutants might lead to more severe and lethal forms of Most of the studies evaluating socioeconomic and demographic variables (four of the six studies) considered population density (Coccia, 2020;Ahmadi et al, 2020;Pequeno et al, 2020;and You et al 2020). Three studies evaluated the influence of income (Azar et al, 2020;You et al, 2020;and Price-Haywood et al, 2020).…”