Revealing the relationship between solar activity and COVID-19 and forecasting of possible future viruses using multi-step autoregression (MSAR)

The number of sunspots shows the solar activity level. During the high solar activity, emissions of matter and electromagnetic fields from the Sun make it difficult for cosmic rays to penetrate the Earth. When solar energy is high, cosmic ray intensity is lower, so that the solar magnetic field and solar winds affect the Earth externally and originate new viruses. In this paper, we assess the possible effects of sunspot numbers on the world virus appearance. The literature has no sufficient results about these phenomena. Therefore, we try to relate solar ray extremum to virus generation and the history of pandemics. First, wavelet decomposition is used for smoothing the sunspot cycle to predict past pandemics and forecast the future time of possible virus generation. Finally, we investigate the geographical appearance of the virus in the world to show vulnerable places in the world. The result of the analysis of pandemics that occurred from 1750 to 2020 shows that world’s great viral pandemics like COVID-19 coincide with the relative extrema of sunspot number. Based on our result, 27 pandemic (from 36) incidences are on sunspot extrema. Then, we forecast future pandemics in the world for about 110 years or 10 cycles using presented multi-step autoregression (MSAR). To confirm these phenomena and the generation of new viruses because of solar activity, researchers should carry out experimental studies.