Global to USA County Scale Analysis of Weather, Urban Density, Mobility, Homestay, and Mask Use on COVID-19

Abstract

Prior evaluations of the relationship between COVID-19 and weather indicate an inconsistent role of meteorology (weather) in the transmission rate. While some effects due to weather may exist, we found possible misconceptions and biases in the analysis that only consider the impact of meteorological variables alone without considering the urban metabolism and environment. This study highlights that COVID-19 assessments can notably benefit by incorporating factors that account for urban dynamics and environmental exposure. We evaluated the role of weather (considering equivalent temperature that combines the effect of humidity and air temperature) with particular consideration of urban density, mobility, homestay, demographic information, and mask use within communities. Our findings highlighted the importance of considering spatial and temporal scales for interpreting the weather/climate impact on the COVID-19 spread and spatiotemporal lags between the causal processes and effects. On global to regional scales, we found contradictory relationships between weather and the transmission rate, confounded by decentralized policies, weather variability, and the onset of screening for COVID-19, highlighting an unlikely impact of weather alone. At a finer spatial scale, the mobility index (with the relative importance of 34.32%) was found to be the highest contributing factor to the COVID-19 pandemic growth, followed by homestay (26.14%), population (23.86%), and urban density (13.03%). The weather by itself was identified as a noninfluential factor (relative importance < 3%). The findings highlight that the relation between COVID-19 and meteorology needs to consider scale, urban density and mobility areas to improve predictions.

The short-term impacts of coronavirus quarantine in São Paulo: The health-economy trade-offs

“…The weather variables may also satisfy the second (exclusion restriction) and third (ignorability) assumptions. Studies have shown that, after controlling for sociodemographic factors, weather alone had a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19 across the world [ 41 ]. In other words, the correlation between weather and COVID-19 found in some studies [ 42 ] may arise because of the influence of weather on people’s behavior, rather than on the virus itself.…”

A Strong Seasonality Pattern for Covid-19 Incidence Rates Modulated by UV Radiation Levels

“…Background : As the pandemic has engulfed the globe, affecting human activities on an unprecedented level, and concerns that Covid-19 may become endemic in the entire population, as other coronavirus infections have [ 4 ], the issue of seasonality must be unambiguously settled, especially as we are now approaching a full year of the epidemic expansion [ 7 ]. Other factors such as population density [ 8 ] or public health measures [ 9 ] have been seen as critical and thus challenged notions of seasonality of Covid-19, intertwined with irregular seasonal parameters such as humidity and air temperature [ 10 ]. Yet, recent research points to strong seasonal forcing of respiratory diseases that are modulated by environmental factors [ 11 ], an element that supports a similar cycle for Covid-19 [ 12 ].…”

Temperature Dependent Viral Tropism (TDVT): Understanding Viral Seasonality and Pathogenicity as Applied to the Avoidance and Treatment of Endemic Viral Respiratory Illnesses

“…However, Guo et al looked at meteorological factors and Covid-19 incidence in 190 countries and concluded that a higher temperature was associated with a lower incidence of Covid-19 [89]. Ward et al determined that humidity has a significant effect on SARS-Cov2 spread in Australia [90], but Jamshidi et al did not find that weather was a significant factor [91]. Note that many meteorological studies examined absolutes of humidity and temperature, not fluctuations.…”