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The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana

BACKGROUND: Climatic factors have been shown to influence communicable disease dynamics especially in tropical regions where temperature could swing from extreme heat and dryness to wet and cold within a short period of time. This is more pronounced in the spread of airborne diseases. In this study,...

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Autores principales: Aidoo, Eric N., Adebanji, Atinuke O., Awashie, Gaston E., Appiah, Simon K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7802986/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33456305
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42269-021-00484-3
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author Aidoo, Eric N.
Adebanji, Atinuke O.
Awashie, Gaston E.
Appiah, Simon K.
author_facet Aidoo, Eric N.
Adebanji, Atinuke O.
Awashie, Gaston E.
Appiah, Simon K.
author_sort Aidoo, Eric N.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Climatic factors have been shown to influence communicable disease dynamics especially in tropical regions where temperature could swing from extreme heat and dryness to wet and cold within a short period of time. This is more pronounced in the spread of airborne diseases. In this study, the effect of some local weather variables (average temperature, average relative humidity, average wind speed and average atmospheric pressure) on the risk of Severe Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Ghana is investigated. The daily confirmed new COVID-19 cases were compiled from the Ghana Health Service and the weather data extracted from Weatherbase. The type of relationship between the climatic variable and risk of spread were explored using the Generalized Additive Model (GAM). RESULTS: Results obtained showed that wind speed and atmospheric pressure have positive linear relationship with the spread of infection an increase in the risk of COVID-19 spread. In addition, the risk of spread fluctuates for temperature between 24 and 29 °C but sharply decreases when average temperature exceeds 29 °C. The risk of spread of COVID-19 significantly decrease for relative humidity between 72 and 76% and leveled afterwards. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that wind speed and pressure have a positive linear relationship with the risk of spread of COVID-19 whilst temperature and humidity have a non-linear relationship with the spread of COVID-19. These findings highlight the need for policy makers to design effective countermeasures for controlling the spread as we are still within the low temperature season.
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spelling pubmed-78029862021-01-13 The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana Aidoo, Eric N. Adebanji, Atinuke O. Awashie, Gaston E. Appiah, Simon K. Bull Natl Res Cent Research BACKGROUND: Climatic factors have been shown to influence communicable disease dynamics especially in tropical regions where temperature could swing from extreme heat and dryness to wet and cold within a short period of time. This is more pronounced in the spread of airborne diseases. In this study, the effect of some local weather variables (average temperature, average relative humidity, average wind speed and average atmospheric pressure) on the risk of Severe Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Ghana is investigated. The daily confirmed new COVID-19 cases were compiled from the Ghana Health Service and the weather data extracted from Weatherbase. The type of relationship between the climatic variable and risk of spread were explored using the Generalized Additive Model (GAM). RESULTS: Results obtained showed that wind speed and atmospheric pressure have positive linear relationship with the spread of infection an increase in the risk of COVID-19 spread. In addition, the risk of spread fluctuates for temperature between 24 and 29 °C but sharply decreases when average temperature exceeds 29 °C. The risk of spread of COVID-19 significantly decrease for relative humidity between 72 and 76% and leveled afterwards. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that wind speed and pressure have a positive linear relationship with the risk of spread of COVID-19 whilst temperature and humidity have a non-linear relationship with the spread of COVID-19. These findings highlight the need for policy makers to design effective countermeasures for controlling the spread as we are still within the low temperature season. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-01-12 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7802986/ /pubmed/33456305 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42269-021-00484-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Research
Aidoo, Eric N.
Adebanji, Atinuke O.
Awashie, Gaston E.
Appiah, Simon K.
The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana
title The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana
title_full The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana
title_fullStr The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana
title_full_unstemmed The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana
title_short The effects of weather on the spread of COVID-19: evidence from Ghana
title_sort effects of weather on the spread of covid-19: evidence from ghana
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7802986/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33456305
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42269-021-00484-3
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