key: cord-0850326-pbh21gu5
authors: Alkhowailed, Mohammad; Shariq, Ali; Alqossayir, Fuhaid; Alzahrani, Osama A.; Rasheed, Zafar; Al Abdulmonem, Waleed
title: Impact of meteorological parameters on COVID-19 pandemic: A comprehensive study from Saudi Arabia
date: 2020-08-28
journal: Inform Med Unlocked
DOI: 10.1016/j.imu.2020.100418
sha: a9a8c9f42d4c8dd02bdaa264f4d5565510945ad2
doc_id: 850326
cord_uid: pbh21gu5

BACKGROUND: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now been declared a global public health disaster with no currently available vaccine. This study was undertaken to analyse the effect of meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the spread of ongoing COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: The COVID-19 dashboard for five major cities of Saudi Arabia - Riyadh, Makah, Jeddah, Medina and Dammam was used for data collection. The data on weather were collected from the Weather Underground Company (IBM business GA, USA, 2020). The data were analysed by Spearman's rank correlations using JASP statistical software in two main sections. In the first section the data on COVID-19 from cities were combined to analyse the overall picture of COVID-19 and in the second section, different meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity and wind speed were analyzed. RESULTS: Novel data revealed interesting facts on the spreading of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia, the data showed that the number of COVID-19 positive cases increases due to the decrease of temperature or humidity, whereas an average decrease in the wind speed was also found to be associated with an elevation of the number of positive cases. CONCLUSIONS: This study determined the impact meteorological factors on the infectivity rate of COVID-19. An inverse association was found between the meteorological parameters with the spreading of COIVD-19. Therefore, this study directs the health authorities to implement specific measures against the spreading of this global pandemic based on weather patterns.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) belongs to the family of enveloped RNA virus that is accountable for causing an infection termed as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID- 19) among humans and has taken the form of a pandemic within a brief period of a few months [1] . The first case of COVID-19 was initially reported in December 2019 from a city named Wuhan, which is the capital of Hubei province situated in the People's Republic of China [2] . World health organization affirmed SARS-CoV-2 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Jan 30, 2020, and later, on Mar 11, 2020 , it was categorized as a pandemic [3] . SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic virus, but the exact zoonotic source for this virus is not yet confirmed. Human infections from various members of the Coronavirus family are not novel, as previously six viruses related to this family were accountable for causing infections among humans. SARS-CoV-2 is labelled as the seventh member of the coronavirus family that has infected humans after the Middle East respiratory Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) [4] . The COVID-19 pandemic spread globally, affecting nearly all countries around the globe and infecting 22,536,278 people, and 789,197 numbers of confirmed deaths have been reported by WHO to August 21, 2020 [5] . This now has been declared a global public health disaster [6] . The first case reported in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was on March 2, 2020, in Qattif city situated in the eastern province of KSA and other cases were reported from other regions as well, and until August 21, 2020, 303,973 was the number of confirmed cases that have been identified, out of which the number of the deaths is 3,548 [5] [6] [7] [8] . In order to confront the spreading pandemic, various preventive strategies were implemented across the globe. Like other countries, KSA also commenced various preventive measures to slow down the spread of J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f this viral infection, including practicing of social distancing, wearing masks, creating awareness of the use of digital technology, screening programs, a countrywide lockdown, appointment of new medical staff, and use of artificial intelligence technologies for contacting or tracing of infected people, and planning then to quarantine [6] [7] [8] . As the mode of spread of this virus is mainly via droplets from an infected person to others which can spread to a distance of about 3 to 6 feet, the elementary measure in controlling the spread was to implement travel restriction between countries as well as different regions of the same country. Keeping this under consideration, the government of KSA placed a travel ban on residents of one city to move to other cities under normal circumstances; this measure played a significant role in controlling the spread of this infection from region to region, as well as assisting in providing an accurate count of the number of cases in each city/region, which helped in detecting infective persons and taking the appropriate protective measures such as quarantine and wearing masks that helps in the overall management of this disease [7, 8] . Furthermore, the diagnosis of this viral infection in its early phase plays a vital role to handle this novel infection. There are a number of diagnostic techniques available, but WHO recommended the use of real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) since 17 January 2020 [5, 9] and now the Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) techniques are also in use for testing of COVID-19 patients [10] . In addition to these, radiographs of lungs and histopathology of lung biopsies have also been currently in use for the diagnosis of this novel infection [11, 12] .

Recent studies conducted on COVID-19 revealed that various environmental factors, particularly the climate, also have a contribution to the mode of transmission of SARS-Cov-2 [13] . A range of epidemiological studies has shown a significant association between the meteorological parameters with the survival period and the spread of this virus among the community [13, 14] . This information is vital as the meteorological parameters vary from region to region; hence understanding the effect of climate can be beneficial to limit the spread of this virus. Various studies proved that cold temperature provides a favorable environment for incubation and virulence of this virus, which aids in its efficiency to potentially infect humans [15] . Chin et al. studied the effect of temperature on the survival rate of SARS-CoV-2 and came with the finding that it is a heat-sensitive virus and is stable at 4 °C whereas when the temperature was rose to 70°C the incubation period of this virus significantly lessen to five minutes [16] . Another study conducted in China to test the effect of temperature on the infectivity rate of this virus revealed that when the temperature was below 3°C, the number of COVID-19 cases were amplified [17] . Considering these studies under appraisal, it is crucial to conduct a study in order to analyze the association between the meteorological parameters and the COVID-19 pandemic. As the climate in KSA varies from region to region so in our study, we have studied the effect of meteorological parameters on the infectivity rate of COVID-19 by analyzing a day to day data of a number 

The weather data were obtained from the Weather Underground website https://www.wunderground.com, which rely on local weather stations for meteorological information [20] . Historical data were retrieved for five major cities (the capital Riyadh, 

We used JASP statistical software (Version 0.12.2) for the statistical analysis and producing figures, including the scatter plots [21] . It is an open-source computer program available for free use. Spearman's rank correlation test was used to check the correlation between the numerical variables. Correlation coefficients are provided with 95% confidence intervals. A P-value of <0.05 considered a statistically significant relationship.

The analysis is divided into two main parts. The first part combines data of all five cities in one analysis, which gives an overall picture of the effect of weather on COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia. As the weather differs from city to city, we include a separate second part of analysis for each city for more detailed information, easier and more appropriate comparison.

This study was conducted to investigate an association of weather or atmospheric Table 2 .

To study the data in depth, the correlation of daily reported positive cases in Riyadh, Makah, Jeddah, Medina and Dammam versus meteorological parameters such as maximum and average temperature, humidity and wind speed were analysed and the specific details for every city are presented in Figure 3 and the complete statistical analysis are summarized in Table 3 . We found out that on Spearman's correlation of daily cases with meteorological parameters, in Riyadh and Mecca, Medina average temperature and humidity showed a correlation (p<0.05), whereas average wind speed in Riyadh and Medina showed a weak correlation, however in Mecca it revealed a linear correlation coefficient (p<0.05). In Jeddah, Spearman's correlation of daily cases revealed a moderate correlation with temperature whereas weak correlation with humidity and a linear correlation with wind speed whereas in Dammam temperature showed a weak correlation, average humidity revealed a linear correlation however average speed of wind showed a moderate correlation coefficient (p<0.05). We found out that the highest number of cases was reported from Riyadh city whereas data from Dammam revealed a downward trend. In Figure 4 , we presented daily number of positive cases occurring in each city individually in relation to temperature, humidity and wind speed in which we found out that lower average temperature and humidity favours the spread of this infection hence an increase in number of positive cases are reported in these days, we also found that during the days when average speed of wind decrease, the number of positive cases inclined. 

However, the role of weather cannot be ignored in this situation as it played a significant role in the spread of this disease [22] [23] [24] [25] . The average temperature in the month of May in all the cities included in our study was 35°C, and the maximum temperature reached was 45°C. Our findings indicate that as the temperature rose, newer infected cases decreased, which is highlighting the fact that an increase in environmental temperature might play a role in declining the infection rate. Our statement can also be justified by the fact that the first case of COVID-19 was reported in KSA at the beginning of March 2020, which is almost two months ahead from the first reported case in China [1, 2] ; the lower temperature in these months might have favoured the spread of corona infection and giving it a form of the pandemic. Similar findings were also reported in Turkey, which fully supported our results [22] . Another study conducted to evaluate the effect of temperature on COVID-19 cases reported that the incidence of newly infected cases elevated when the temperature was less [23] , which further supported our findings. Not only have these other studies conducted in Malaysia concluded that temperate plays a negative role for the spread of COVID-19 infection, as they found the infectivity of COVID-19 infection was less in warm weather conditions [24] . Moreover, we also determined the role of humidity on the COVID-19 spread; our data showed that humidity in the air has a weak correlation with the number of infected cases. In the month of May, KSA reported an increasing trend of newly infected cases when the humidity level gradually was increasing from 60 percent at the start of the month and reaching an average of 20 percent in the studied cities. Eastern province comprises fifteen percent of the population of KSA and is bordered by the Arabian Gulf on its eastern side; therefore, the humidity level and dew point in this region is relatively high in comparison to the rest of KSA. In this region, when the average humidity level increased J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f to 40 percent, the number of positive cases also increased, whereas a decrease in humidity level was associated with fewer new cases. The same association we also have observed in Jeddah city where an increase in humidity was associated with an increase in the number of infected cases. These findings were also supported by other studies, which performed in different regions of the world [25, 26] . However, various experimental studies conducted to find the effect of humidity on the survival time of a virus proved that viral inactivation occurs as a result of viral capsids accumulation at the air-water interface of a solution leading to structural damage [27, 28] ..In this study, we found a negative association between This study has few limitations, firstly, as not all the people who are infected by the SARS-COV-2 virus exhibit symptoms; hence they are not tested for the disease and are not reported. Secondly the incubation period of COVID-19 range from two to fourteen days in which the person remains asymptomatic but can transmit the disease to other people, during this period if that person travels to another city which is not among our study area, his data will be not be reported in the ascendency of the cities which are included in this study.

Finally, our findings should be interpreted with caution as using group-level data may result in ecological fallacy.

This study determined the impact meteorological factors on the infectivity rate of COVID- 19 . This study revealed that temperature, humidity, and wind speed can be important factors affecting the COVID-19 infectivity. We determined that the number of COVID-19 cases increased when the temperature and relative humidity were less. Also we found that the number of positive cases increased in those regions where average wind speed was less, particularly in crowded regions where a lesser wind speed was associated with a marked increases in positive cases. As it has been just four months for the occurrence of pandemic in the Saudi Arabia, more studies are required to be conducted on this topic concerning the association of COVID-19 infectivity rate with variation of weather.

funding publication of this project.

Mohammad Alkhowailed: Conceptualization, data collection and interpretation and 

The authors declare no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 

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