Containment measures limit environmental effects on COVID-19 early outbreak dynamics.

ABSTRACT: Environmental factors are well known to affect spatio-temporal patterns of infectious disease outbreaks, but whether the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the globe is related to local environmental conditions is highly debated. We assessed the impact of environmental factors (temperature, humidity and air pollution) on the global patterns of COVID-19 early outbreak dynamics during January-May 2020, controlling for several key socio-economic factors and airport connections. We showed that during the earliest phase of the global outbreak (January-March), COVID-19 growth rates were non-linearly related to climate, with fastest spread in regions with a mean temperature of ca. 5 °C, and in the most polluted regions. However, environmental effects faded almost completely when considering later ou

SUBMITTER: Ficetola GF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7744010 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature