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. 2021 Feb 5;28(22):28624–28639. doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-12668-5

Table 2.

comparison of studies analyzing the Covid-19 and meteorological relationship

Study Country(s) Methodology Time period Findings
Adhikari and Yin (2020) New York, USA Negative binomial regression model March 1 to April 20, 2020 Significant and positive association between temperature, O3 concentration, relative humidity, cloud percentages, and Covid-19 cases; however, none of these are related to death
Al-Rousan and Al-Najjar (2020) 30 Chinese provinces Pearson’s correlation January 22 to March 1, 2020 Temperature, shortwave radiation and pressure are positively correlated with Covid-19 cases. Other variables are provincially distinct, and snowfall has no correlation
Auler et al. (2020) Brazil Exploratory data analysis, Shapiro-Wilk test, Clausius-Clapeyron equation March 13 to April 13, 2020 High mean temperatures and intermediate relative humidity influence the Covid-19 transmission rate
Berman and Ebisu (2020) USA Summary statistics and comparisons between pollution concentrations during historical versus current periods done using two-sided t-tests January 8 to April 21 from 2017 to 2020 Statistically significant declines in NO2 and PM2.5 were observed during the Covid-19 period
Bontempi (2020) Italy Reported data analysis February 10 to March 27, 2020 It is not necessary that PM10 as a carrier causes Covid-19 transmission
Briz-Redón and Serrano-Aroca (2020) Spain Spatio-temporal analysis February 25 to March 28, 2020 Warmer mean, minimum and maximum temperatures does not lead to any reduction in the Covid-19 cases
Chien and Chen (2020) USA Generalized additive model (GAM) March 22, 2020, to April 22, 2020 Average temperature, minimum relative humidity, and precipitation minimize the Covid-19 risk after some peak value
Gupta et al. (2020) USA, India Distribution modeling- mean, standard deviation January 1 to April 9, 2020 Covid-19 spread in the USA is significant for states with 4 < AH < 6 g/m3, and temperature in a wider range of 4–11 °C with number of new cases N 10,000
Iqbal et al. (2020) China Continuous wavelet transform (CWT), wavelet transform coherence (WTC), partial wavelet coherence (PWC), and multiple wavelet coherence (MWC) January 21 to March 31, 2020 No significant role of temperature in containing Covid-19 cases
Jain and Sharma (2020) India Trend analysis, paired t-test, GIS technique

March to April 2019 and 2020

March 10 to 20, 2020

March 25 to April 6, 2020

Significant decline in all the pollutants except for O3 during the lock-down phase. Low relative humidity and very high wind speed and temperature lead to dispersion of air pollutants
Kumar (2020) India Pearson correlation March to April, 2020

Positive association between temperature and Covid-19 cases.

Negative association between humidity and Covid-19 cases

Zhu et al. 2020, b 8 South American cities Multiple regression analysis: Spearman’s correlation coefficient February 23 to May 12, 2020 The association between absolute humidity and incubative cases is negative. There were large differences between the effects of the coefficient of correlation in individual cases and Rt. Average wind speed and visibility were not closely related to daily incubation
Lin et al. (2020) 20 Chinese provinces Mechanism-based parameterisation scheme January 22 to February 29, 2020 Higher population density was linearly whereas a lower temperature was exponentially associated with an increased transmission rate of Covid-19
Liu et al. fliu (2020) China Generalized linear models, meta-analysis January 20 to March 2, 2020 The low temperature climate, moderate diurnal temperatures and low humidity probably contribute to Covid-19 transmission
Ma et al. (2020) China Generalized additive model (GAM) January 20 to February 29, 2020 A positive association is found between daily deaths and DTR and SO2. Relative humidity and PM2.5 is negatively associated with daily deaths
Mandal and Panwar (2020) China Univariate analysis and statistical modeling March 25 to April 18, 2020 Strong negative correlations with statistical significance exist between MAET and several Covid-19 cases
Méndez-Arriaga (2020) Mexico Spearman’s non-parametric test February 29 to March 31, 2020 Negative association between temperature, atmospheric evaporation and Covid-19 cases while there is a positive association between precipitation and Covid-19 cases
Pani et al. (2020) Singapore Spearman and Kendall’s rank correlation tests January 23 to May 31, 2020 Temperature, dew point, relative humidity, absolute humidity, and water vapor show positive significant correlation with Covid-19 cases
Prata et al. (2020) Brazil Generalized Additive Model (GAM) February 27 to April 1, 2020 Negative linear relationship between temperature and Covid-19 cases
Rosario et al. (2020) Brazil Spearman’s rank correlation March 6 to April 30, 2020 Significant correlation between temperature maximum and average, radiation, wind speed and Covid-19 cases
Sarkodie and Owusu (2020) Top 20 countries CIPS and CADF panel unit root, Granger causality test, split-panel jack-knife method, kernel density estimation January 22 to April 27, 2020 Temperature and humidity have negative impact on COVID-19 whereas wind speed, dew/frost point, precipitation, and surface pressure have a positive impact
Sethwala et al. (2020) USA, China, Canada, and Australia Wilcoxon’s test January 23 to April 11, 2020 Definitive association between Covid-19 cases, death from Covid-19 cases, and ambient temperature exists
Sharma et al. (2020, b, c, d) India

Weather research forecasting (WRF)

Air quality dispersion modeling system (AERMOD)

March 16 to April 14 from 2017 to 2020 Levels of PM2.5, PM10, CO, and NO2 decreased significantly while O3 level increased and SO2 showed negligible changes. Wind speed varies with direction whereas temperature has negligible variations in different regions.
Shi et al. (2020) 31 Chinese provinces Modified susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (M-SEIR) model January 20 to February 29, 2020

Negative association between temperature and Covid-19 cases.

No significant association between Covid-19 cases and absolute humidity

Tosepu et al. (2020) Indonesia Spearman-rank correlation test January 1 to March 29, 2020 Average temperature is significantly correlated with Covid-19 pandemic
Wang et al. (2020) Globally 166 countries except China Restricted cubic spline function and generalized linear mixture model January 20 to February 4, 2020 Temperature could significantly change Covid-19 cases to a certain extent
Wu et al. (2020, b) Globally 166 countries except China Log-linear generalized additive model, sensitivity analysis As of March 27, 2020 Both temperature and relative humidity were negatively associated with reported daily cases and deaths
Xie and Zhu (2020) 122 Chinese cities Generalized additive model (GAM) and piecewise linear regression January 23 to February 29, 2020 Results indicate that mean temperature has a positive linear relationship with the number of Covid-19 cases
Xu et al. (2020) China Observational analysis 2017–2019 Air quality near central China improved significantly
Zangari et al. (2020) USA Linear time lag models show First 17 weeks from 2015 to 2020 No difference in air quality between 2020 and 2015–2019 is found
Zhu et al. (2020) 122 Chinese cities Generalized additive model (GAM) January 23 to February 29, 2020 Results indicate a significant relationship between air pollution and Covid-19 infection
Zoran et al. (2020) Italy Spatial analysis January 1–April 30, 2020 Strong influence of daily averaged ground levels of concentrations, positively associated with average surface air temperature and inversely related to relative humidity and wind speed on Covid-19 cases

Source: authors’ contribution