Evidence that higher temperatures are associated with lower incidence of COVID-19 in pandemic state, cumulative cases reported up to March 27, 2020

Michael Triplett

In conflict with the model for March 27, case rates reported for March 14 and 21 trended continuously upward with decreased temperature below 22.5 o C. Nonlinearity for the most recent data might be explained by typical warming trends in northern latitudes that move case rate and population distributions to the right through March; variance in national-and local-level countermeasures may have effected growth in northern regions; the virus naturally peaks at lower levels in extremely cold and sparsely populated northern temperate/polar regions; and/or the virus was in a previous stage of global development. Regardless of cold weather dynamics, however, the breakpoint of 22.5 o C remains apparent.