Effect of meteorological factors on the COVID-19 cases: a case study related to three major cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the world through its ability to cause widespread infection. The Middle East including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has also been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic like the rest of the world. This study aims to examine the relationships between meteorological factors and COVID-19 case counts in three cities of the KSA. The distribution of the COVID-19 case counts was observed for all three cities followed by cross-correlation analysis which was carried out to estimate the lag effects of meteorological factors on COVID-19 case counts. Moreover, the Poisson model and negative binomial (NB) model with their zero-inflated versions (i.e., ZIP and ZINB) were fitted to estimate city-specific impacts of weather variables on confirmed case counts, and the best model is evaluated by comparative analysis for each city. We found significant associations between meteorological factors and COVID-19 case counts in three cities of KSA. We also perceived that the ZINB model was the best fitted for COVID-19 case counts. In this case study, temperature, humidity, and wind speed were the factors that affected COVID-19 case counts. The results can be used to make policies to overcome this pandemic situation in the future such as deploying more resources through testing and tracking in such areas where we observe significantly higher wind speed or higher humidity. Moreover, the selected models can be used for predicting the probability of COVID-19 incidence across various regions.