Impact of Extreme Hot Climate on COVID‐19 Outbreak in India

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic poses extreme threat to public health and economy, particularly to the nations with higher population density. The disease first reported in Wuhan, China; later, it spreads elsewhere, and currently, India emerged as COVID‐19 hotspot. In India, we selected 20 densely populated cities having infection counts higher than 500 (by 15 May) as COVID‐19 epicenters. Daily COVID‐19 count has strong covariability with local temperature, which accounts approximately 65–85% of the explained variance; i.e., its spread depends strongly on local temperature rise prior to community transmission phase. The COVID‐19 cases are clustered at temperature and humidity ranging within 27–32°C and 25–45%, respectively. We introduce a combined temperature and humidity profile, which favors rapid COVID‐19 growth at the initial phase. The results are highly significant for predicting future COVID‐19 outbreaks and modeling cities based on environmental conditions. On the other hand, CO2 emission is alarmingly high in South Asia (India) and entails high risk of climate change and extreme hot summer. Zoonotic viruses are sensitive to warming induced climate change; COVID‐19 epicenters are collocated on CO2 emission hotspots. The COVID‐19 count distribution peaks at 31.0°C, which is 1.0°C higher than current (2020) and historical (1961–1990) mean, value. Approximately, 72% of the COVID‐19 cases are clustered at severe to record‐breaking hot extremes of historical temperature distribution spectrum. Therefore, extreme climate change has important role in the spread of COVID‐19 pandemic. Hence, a strenuous mitigation measure to abate greenhouse gas (GHG) emission is essential to avoid such pandemics in future.

On the Environmental Determinants of COVID‐19 Seasonality

“…For instance, the spread of COVID‐19 is largely shaped by several factors like population density, social distancing, international travel routes, school closures, event cancellations, mask mandates, and hygiene (Bherwani et al., 2020; Nath et al., 2021; Poirier et al., 2020). Recent studies have suggested that environmental conditions might be related to the spread of the pandemic at the initial phase of the outbreak (Nath et al., 2021; Sasikumar et al., 2020). In this study, in an attempt to isolate the effect of environmental factors from that of the other determinants of COVID‐19, we considered five representative countries (i.e., Canada, Germany, India, Ethiopia, and Chile) which have relatively constant social controls over the analysis period (Figure ).…”

Indirect response of the temperature, humidity, and rainfall on the spread of the COVID-19 over the Indian monsoon region

“…Figures 10a and 10b depict the daily mean average surface temperature and relative humidity respectively during March 1 -December 5, 2020. It has been suggested that hot and dry regions of Indian territory are more susceptible to the COVID infection (Gupta et al, 2020;Sasikumar et al, 2020). However, we observed that the hot and high humid regions like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh were severely affected by COVID spread when compared to hot and dry regions, which are mainly observed in the northwestern and central part of the Indian region (Figs 10a-b).…”

“…For example, Babu et al (2020) reported the positive (negative) correlation between daily COVID-19 cases and temperature (relative humidity) during March to June over Delhi; however, Gupta et al (2020) contradicting the results of Babu et al (2020) and reported no correlation between COVID-19 cases with any weather parameters over Delhi and other 8 major affected cities. Sasikumar et al (2020) reported the cities with higher CO 2 emissions over India are vulnerable to COVID-19 infections. At an early phase of the COVID-19 cases during the Indian summer season (March to May), the surface temperature increases linearly and reaches its maximum value, which was coincided with increasing COVID-19 cases resulting into a strong correlation.…”

Influences of climatic and non-climatic factors on COVID-19 outbreak: A review of existing literature

“…These studies have concentrated on specific locations and nations like China, Brazil, Indonesia, the United States of America, Russia, Iran, and Europe ( Ahmadi et al, 2020 ; Auler et al, 2020 ; Lasisi and Eluwole,2020; Liu et al, 2020 a; Tosepu et al, 2020; Xie and Zhu,2020 ). A minimal study has also been conducted on climatic factors influencing COVID-19 transmission in the South Asian region (Awasthi et al, 2020; Gupta et al, 2020 ; Mofijur et al, 2020 ; Sasikumar et al, 2020 ). In transboundary infection, the effect of shared cultural and behavioral practices on the temporal and spatial spread of COVID-19 in south Asia remains unknown ( Islam et al, 2021 ).…”