Correlation analysis of weather effects on COVID-19 pandemic transmissions in select US counties

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global crisis with enormous uncertainty. This study aims to explore what role climate plays in pandemic transmission. We hypothesize that there is a time lag between weather conditions and the number of infected people. We tested this hypothesis by using moving-average-windows that varied from 1 to 30 days, which are based on weather station data (temperature, wind speed, and precipitation) and daily new confirmed cases that have been collected from 23 counties in the United States, during the period of January 22 to July15, 2020. We found consistent results that the moving average temperature (within 10 days (T_avg₁₀)), the moving average wind speed and the moving average amount of precipitation (within 28 days (W_avg₂₈, P_avg₂₈)) performed as the best meteorological parameters linked to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the USA. The correlation statistics differed regionally: (1) temperature is negatively correlated to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Northeastern US and positively in other areas; (2) wind speed is negatively correlated to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Southeastern US while positively in other areas; and (3) precipitation holds a positive correlation on the east coast of the US and a negative one on the west coast. Our results suggest that meteorological factors may play a significant role in COVID-19 pandemic transmission in the US and should be considered by policy makers and crisis administrators.