Roles of meteorological conditions in COVID-19 transmission on a worldwide scale

Biqing Chen; Hao Liang; Xiaomin Yuan; Yingying Hu; Miao Xu; Yating Zhao; Binfen Zhang; Fang Tian; Xuejun Zhu

In the first season of 2020, an outbreak of atypical pneumonia (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2 or 2019-nCoV) 1 has spread all over the world and had a great impact on public health and worldwide economy. This new virus has some relations to SARS-CoV but it is more aggressive than SARS, MERS, or the seasonal influenza 2 . It has exhibited relatively high human-to-human transmissibility compared to other coronavirus infections 3 To predict epidemic trend, meteorological conditions are suggested to be an important factor as well as population mobility and human-to-human contact. These meteorological factors such as humidity, visibility, and wind speed can affect droplet stability in the environment, or affect survival of viruses as air temperature does, and thus impact epidemic transmission. Air temperature and absolute humidity have been indicated to significantly influence the transmission of COVID-19. However, there are only five studies published on preprint hubs discussed the involvement of meteorological conditions in the spread of COVID-19 up to now, and they all focused on data from China without model validation or prediction.