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A mechanism-based parameterisation scheme to investigate the association between transmission rate of COVID-19 and meteorological factors on plains in China.

Authors :
Lin C
Lau AKH
Fung JCH
Guo C
Chan JWM
Yeung DW
Zhang Y
Bo Y
Hossain MS
Zeng Y
Lao XQ
Source :
The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2020 Oct 01; Vol. 737, pp. 140348. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Jun 18.
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which first emerged in Hubei province, China, has become a pandemic. However, data regarding the effects of meteorological factors on its transmission are limited and inconsistent. A mechanism-based parameterisation scheme was developed to investigate the association between the scaled transmission rate (STR) of COVID-19 and the meteorological parameters in 20 provinces/municipalities located on the plains in China. We obtained information on the scale of population migrated from Wuhan, the world epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, into the study provinces/municipalities using mobile-phone positioning system and big data techniques. The highest STRs were found in densely populated metropolitan areas and in cold provinces located in north-eastern China. Population density had a non-linear relationship with disease spread (linearity index, 0.9). Among various meteorological factors, only temperature was significantly associated with the STR after controlling for the effect of population density. A negative and exponential relationship was identified between the transmission rate and the temperature (correlation coefficient, -0.56; 99% confidence level). The STR increased substantially as the temperature in north-eastern China decreased below 0 °C (the STR ranged from 3.5 to 12.3 when the temperature was between -9.41 °C and -13.87 °C), whilst the STR showed less temperature dependence in the study areas with temperate weather conditions (the STR was 1.21 ± 0.57 when the temperature was above 0 °C). Therefore, a higher population density was linearly whereas a lower temperature (<0 °C) was exponentially associated with an increased transmission rate of COVID-19. These findings suggest that the mitigation of COVID-19 spread in densely populated and/or cold regions will be a great challenge.<br />Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.<br /> (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1879-1026
Volume :
737
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
The Science of the total environment
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
32569904
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140348