Association between meteorological indicators and COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan
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ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND THE EPIDEMICS OF COVID-19
Association between meteorological indicators and COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan Ali Raza 1 & Muhammad Tariq Iqbal Khan 2 & Qamar Ali 3
&
Tanveer Hussain 4 & Saadia Narjis 5
Received: 17 June 2020 / Accepted: 9 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study was designed to investigate the impact of meteorological indicators (temperature, rainfall, and humidity) on total COVID-19 cases in Pakistan, its provinces, and administrative units from March 10, 2020, to August 25, 2020. The correlation analysis showed that COVID-19 cases and temperature showed a positive correlation. It implies that the increase in COVID-19 cases was reported due to an increase in the temperature in Pakistan, its provinces, and administrative units. The generalized Poisson regression showed that the rise in the expected log count of COVID-19 cases was 0.024 times for a 1 °C rise in the average temperature in Pakistan. Second, the correlation between rainfall and COVID-19 cases was negative in Pakistan. However, the regression coefficient between the expected log count of COVID-19 cases and rainfall was insignificant in Pakistan. Third, the correlation between humidity and the total COVID-19 cases was negative, which implies that the increase in humidity is beneficial to stop the transmission of COVID-19 in Pakistan, its provinces, and administrative units. The reduction in the expected log count of COVID-19 cases was 0.008 times for a 1% increase in the humidity per day in Pakistan. However, humidity and COVID-19 cases were positively correlated in Sindh province. It is required to create awareness among the general population, and the government should include the causes, symptoms, and precautions in the educational syllabus. Moreover, people should adopt the habit of hand wash, social distancing, personal hygiene, mask-wearing, and the use of hand sanitizers to control the COVID-19. Keywords Dose-response . Generalized additive model . Humidity . Temperature . Rainfall . Generalized Poisson regression
Introduction The public health and global economy faced difficulties due to the outbreak of novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is responsible for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) (Briz-Redón and Serrano-Aroca
2020). In December 2019, the COVID-19 was initially reported in Wuhan, China. Its common symptoms are cough, fever, fatigue, and shortness of breath. It is generally transmitted between human beings through droplets or physical contact (Xie and Zhu 2020). On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially declared COVID-19 as
Responsible editor: Lotfi Aleya * Qamar Ali [email protected]
1
Department of Molecular Biology, Virtual University of Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan
2
Department of Economics, Government Postgraduate College, Jaranwa la-37200, Pakistan
3
Department of Economics, Virtual University of Pakistan-Faisalabad Campus, Faisab ad-38000, Pakistan
4
Departme
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