Abstract
Coronaviruses are a family of viruses causing mild to severe upper respiratory tract syndrome. Recent pandemic threat caused by SARS-CoV-2 first appeared in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Whether the COVID-19 might be affected by warming global temperatures like some of previous pandemic flues. Therefore, the current study aims to analyze the effect of temperature and relative humidity (RH) on the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 infection. The confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 31 different provinces in China and 274 provinces and/or countries were obtained from an online database. The real time temperature and humidity of the respective regions were taken from another online weather reporting data source. Spearman [R(s)] rank correlation was performed to identify the relationship between the variables (e.g., temperature, number of confirmed cases etc.). The overall spreading of SARS-CoV-2 in relations to temperature was inversely correlated. Among 29 of 31 provinces of China the overall correlation coeffient of the relationship between temperature and viral spread was negative [-R(s)] where in 15 provinces the correlation was at significant level (p<0.05). Furthermore, there was a significant negative relationship observed between the SARS-CoV-2 spreading and air temperature throughout the 274 provinces and/or countries of the world. However, there was no significant co-relationship between humidity and COVID-19 spreading either in China or among countries and/or various regions of the world. The SARS-CoV-2 infection seems to be spread in a wide range of temperature throughout the world. Thus, several factors including temperature, may influnce the SARS-CoV-2 spreading. As a results, relatively elevated air temperature could not completely prevent viral spread but it might be one of the important detrimental factors for SARS-CoV-2 rapid spread.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)caused by SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2) became a pandemic threat and serious public health emergency of international concern in the winter of 2019-201
The clinical symptoms of COVID-19 are mild to high fever, cough, fatigue, dyspnea, headache, and diarrhea, which depend on the age and condition of the infected patients[3, 4]
We wanted to find out whether there is any correlation of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity with the temperature in different Chinese provinces
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)caused by SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2) became a pandemic threat and serious public health emergency of international concern in the winter of 2019-201. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive sense single stranded RNA virus under the betacoronavirus genus and coronaviridae family. It is an enveloped virus containing ~30.0 kb genome[5]. The overall temperature susceptibility of influenza virus increases (it can withstand 60-65°C) once it inhabits into a droplet 10. It has been reported that the viruses causing pandemic threat, e.g. SARS, MERS, H1N1 influenza, spread through ‘droplet transmission’ and/or ‘airborne transmission’[11,12,13]. In a laboratory experimental model, the transmission of respiratory droplets among guinea pigs affected by temperature and relative humidity revealed the shaping influenza seasonality[14]
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