Global COVID-19 pandemic trends and their relationship with meteorological variables, air pollutants and socioeconomic aspects

Abstract

Meteorological variables, air pollutants, and socioeconomic factors are associated with COVID-19 transmission. However, it is unclear what impact their interactions have on COVID-19 transmission, whether their impact on COVID-19 transmission is linear or non-linear, and where the inflexion points are. This study examined 1) the spatial and temporal trends in COVID-19 monthly infection rate of new confirmed cases per 100,000 people (Rn) in 188 countries/regions worldwide from March to November 2020; 2) the linear correlation between meteorological variables (temperature (T), rainfall (R), wind speed (WS), relative humidity (RH), air pressure (AP)), air pollutants (nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3)) and socioeconomic aspects (population density (PD), gross domestic product per capita (GDP), domestic general government health expenditure per capita (GHE)) and Rn, and 3) the interaction and non-linear effects of the different variables on Rn, based on GeoDetector and Boosted regression tree. The results showed that the global Rn had was spatially clustered, and the average Rn increased From March to November 2020. Global Rn was negatively correlated with meteorological variables (T, R, WS, AP) and positively correlated with air pollutants (NO2, SO2, O3) and socioeconomic aspects (GDP, GHE). The interaction of SO2 and O3, SO2 and RH, and O3 and T strongly affected Rn. The variables effect on COVID-19 transmission was non-linear, with one or more inflexion points. The findings of this work can provide a basis for developing a global response to COVID-19 for global sustainable development.