Effect of environmental factors on SARS-CoV-2 infectivity in northern hemisphere countries: a 2-year data analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in December 2019 brought human life to a standstill. With over 2-year since the pandemic originated from Wuhan, SARS-CoV-2 has caused more than 6 million deaths worldwide. With the emergence of mutant strains and COVID-19 surge waves, it becomes critically important to conduct epidemiological studies that allow us to understand the role of various environmental factors on SARS-CoV-2 infectivity. Our earlier study reported a strong negative correlation between temperature and COVID-19 incidence. This research is an extension of our previous study with an attempt to understand the global analysis of COVID-19 in northern hemisphere countries.

This research aims at achieving a better understanding of the correlation of environmental factors such as temperature, sunlight, and humidity with new cases of COVID-19 in northern hemisphere from March 2020 to February 2022.

To understand the relationship between the different environmental variants and COVID-19, a statistical approach was employed using Pearson, Spearman and Kendall analysis.

Month-wise univariate analysis indicated a strong negative correlation of temperature and sunlight with SARS-CoV-2 infectivity, whereas inconsistencies were observed in correlation analysis in the case of humidity in winter months. Moreover, a strong negative correlation between average temperature of winter months and COVID-19 cases exists as evidenced by Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall analyses. In addition, correlation pattern between monthly temperature and COVID-19 cases of a country mimics to that of sunlight of a country.

This pilot study proposes that low temperatures and low sunlight might be additional risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infectivity, mostly in northern hemisphere countries.