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. 2021 Dec 21;34(11):871–880. doi: 10.3967/bes2021.120

No Effects of Meteorological Factors on the SARS-CoV-2 Infection Fatality Rate

Aleix SOLANES a,b,#, Carlos LAREDO a, Mar GUASP a,c, Miquel Angel FULLANA a,d,e, Lydia FORTEA a,e,f, Ignasi GARCIA-OLIVÉ g,h, Marco SOLMI i,j, Jae Il SHIN k, Xabier URRA a,c, Joaquim RADUA a,e,j,l
PMCID: PMC8690129  PMID: 34955147

Abstract

Objective

Previous studies have shown that meteorological factors may increase COVID-19 mortality, likely due to the increased transmission of the virus. However, this could also be related to an increased infection fatality rate (IFR). We investigated the association between meteorological factors (temperature, humidity, solar irradiance, pressure, wind, precipitation, cloud coverage) and IFR across Spanish provinces (n = 52) during the first wave of the pandemic (weeks 10–16 of 2020).

Methods

We estimated IFR as excess deaths (the gap between observed and expected deaths, considering COVID-19-unrelated deaths prevented by lockdown measures) divided by the number of infections (SARS-CoV-2 seropositive individuals plus excess deaths) and conducted Spearman correlations between meteorological factors and IFR across the provinces.

Results

We estimated 2,418,250 infections and 43,237 deaths. The IFR was 0.03% in < 50-year-old, 0.22% in 50–59-year-old, 0.9% in 60–69-year-old, 3.3% in 70–79-year-old, 12.6% in 80–89-year-old, and 26.5% in ≥ 90-year-old. We did not find statistically significant relationships between meteorological factors and adjusted IFR. However, we found strong relationships between low temperature and unadjusted IFR, likely due to Spain's colder provinces' aging population.

Conclusion

The association between meteorological factors and adjusted COVID-19 IFR is unclear. Neglecting age differences or ignoring COVID-19-unrelated deaths may severely bias COVID-19 epidemiological analyses.

Key words: Climate, COVID-19, Infection fatality rate, SARS-CoV-2, Temperature, Weather

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