ABSTRACT
Infectious diseases like COVID-19 spread rapidly and have led to substantial economic loss worldwide, including in Pakistan. The effect of weather on COVID-19 spreading needs more detailed examination, as some studies have claimed to mitigate its spread. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by WHO and has been reported in about 210 countries worldwide, including Asia, Europe, the USA, and North America. Person-to-person contact and international air travel between the nations were the leading causes behind the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 from its point of origin, besides the natural forces. However, further spread and infection within the community or country can be aided by natural elements, such as the weather. Therefore, the correlation between COVID-19 and temperature can be better elucidated in countries like Pakistan, where SARS-CoV-2 has affected at least 0.37 million people. This study collected Pakistan's COVID-19 infection and mortality data for ten months (March–December 2020). Related weather parameters, temperature, and humidity were also obtained for the same course of time. The collected data were processed and used to compare the performance of various time series prediction models in terms of mean squared error (MSE), root-mean-squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). This paper, using the time series model, estimates the effect of humidity, temperature, and other weather parameters on COVID-19 transmission by obtaining the correlation among the total infected cases and the number of deaths and weather variables in a particular region. Results depict that weather parameters hold more influence in evaluating the sum number of cases and deaths than other factors like community, age, and the total population. Therefore, temperature and humidity are salient parameters for predicting COVID-19 affected instances. Moreover, it is concluded that the higher the temperature, the lesser the mortality due to COVID-19 infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Mathematical Problems in Engineering is the property of Hindawi Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
ABSTRACT
There is increasing interest in CO2 emissions inequality between and within countries, and concerns about the impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable groups. In this study, the CO2 emissions inequality based on the different consumption category data of disaggregated income groups in eight developing countries is analyzed with the application of input-output model. We further examine the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on CO2 emissions inequality based on the hypothetical extraction method, and the results reveal that the outbreak has decreased the CO2 emissions inequality and emissions over time. However, the shared socioeconomic pathway scenario simulation results indicate that long-term CO2 emissions inequality will persist. Targeted poverty elimination measures improve the utility of the low- and lowest-income groups and reduce CO2 emissions inequality. Reducing the excessive consumption on the demand side as well as improving the energy efficiency and increasing the share of renewable energy in the energy consumption on the supply side will provide more informed options to achieve multiple desirable outcomes, such as poverty elimination and climate change mitigation.