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Environmental factors are known to affect outbreak patterns of infectious disease, but their impacts on the spread of COVID-19 along with the evolution of this relationship over time intervals and in different regions are unclear. This study utilized 3 years of data on COVID-19 cases in the continental United States from 2020 to 2022 and the corresponding weather data. We used regression analysis to investigate weather impacts on COVID-19 spread in the mainland United States and estimate the changes of these impacts over space and time. Temperature exhibited a significant and moderately strong negative correlation for most of the US while relative humidity and precipitation experienced mixed relationships. By regressing temperature factors with the spreading rate of waves, we found temperature change can explain over 20% of the spatial-temporal variation in the COVID-19 spreading, with a significant and negative response between temperature change and spreading rate. The pandemic in the continental United States during 2020-2022 was characterized by seven waves, with different transmission rates and wave peaks concentrated in seven time periods. When repeating the analysis for waves in the seven periods and nine climate zones, we found temperature impacts evolve over time and space, possibly due to virus mutation, changes in population susceptibility, social behavior, and control measures. Temperature impacts became weaker in 6 of 9 climate zones from the beginning of the epidemic to the end of 2022, suggesting that COVID-19 has increasingly adapted to wider weather conditions.

Many high school students take accelerated courses, and past research has shown that this can lead to higher stress. The Advanced Placement program (AP) is currently one of the most ubiquitous accelerated course programs across the United States. To understand how AP enrollment changes over time, this study analyzed AP data reports from 2002-2021 provided by the College Board. To further understand how AP classes affect students' academic stress and well-being factors, this study surveyed 176 students at a North Central Florida high school. The results show that the AP exams per student exhibited a significant increase for high school students in the past two decades, with faster increases in the lower grades (9th and 10th graders) and higher expectation students. In addition, the survey indicates that when the average student takes more APs, they tend to spend more time on homework, get less sleep, and have higher self-perceived stress. However, students who took one to three AP classes generally had the best median mental well-being score. Though the sample distribution may have certain biases, these results provide useful information for students and families to develop optimal academic strategies based on students' study habits, stress-coping ability, and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]