Suppression of COVID-19 death incidence on open west coasts in the USA.

ABSTRACT: The drivers behind the large-scale patterns of COVID-19 infections are largely unknown. Earlier studies have shown a connection between continentality, a measure for oceanic air influence over land, where lowest continentality implies highest oceanic influence, and COVID-19. In Europe, open west coasts with lowest continentality had the lowest COVID-19 incidence. We test if this applies to the US. We use a combination of geographical information systems and statistics, and data for every US county, to assess the connection between the COVID-19 death incidence and continentality. We normalize for known factors that influence COVID-19 local scale death incidence, namely the socio-economic status, population aged over 65, and the index of urbanization (crowding). We find that open west-coasts

SUBMITTER: Ebert K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12325701 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature