Weather Parameters and COVID-19: A Correlational Analysis.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To assess the effect of ambient temperature, humidity and wind speed on disease occurrence in Delhi, India. DATA AND METHODS: Data regarding daily corona cases, temperature, humidity, wind speed, doubling time and basic reproduction number (R0) was retrieved from online sources. Pearson's coefficient was used to assess the correlation between daily as well as weekly corona cases and various environmental factors. RESULTS: During the study period of 97 days, there was a steady rise in number of corona cases with median (interquartile range) cases per day being 224 (58 to 635). The doubling time demonstrated a strong positive correlation with temperature while R0 had strong negative correlation with temperature (correlation coefficients 0.814 and -0.78, respectively). No significant correlation with humidity or wind speed was observed. CONCLUSION: Increasing temperature decreases COVID-19 infectivity; however, actual role of environmental factors in expansion of pandemic needs further evaluation globally.