Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading very fast globally and various factors of it have to be analyzed. Climatic parameters play very crucial role in spreading of an epidemic, that is, COVID-19 worldwide.

Objective: The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of climatic parameters (average temperature [AT], atmospheric pressure, relative humidity [RH], solar radiation [SR], and wind speed [WS]) on the COVID-19 epidemic during March 25, 2020, to June 15, 2020, in most affected states of India, that is, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Tamil Nadu.

Materials and Methods: We quantitatively establish the correlation between climatic parameters and COVID-19 cases using statistical tests, that is, Kendall and Spearman rank correlation test. A comparative study of climatic parameters in the current COVID-19 period from previous 2 years (2018–2019) has been carried out.

Results: The obtained results indicate that the numbers of cases are highly correlated with the AT (r2 > 0.6, P < 0.001) in Delhi whereas a moderate correlation (r2 < 0.6, P < 0.001) has been estimated for Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Similarly, an intermediate range of correlation coefficient has been observed for other climatic parameters. The range of climatic parameters has been found corresponding to maximum number of cases results as AT (25~40°C), RH (40~70%), AT (740~965 mmHg), SR (200–250 W/m2), and WS (0.5~14 m/s).

Conclusion: This study emphasizes that climatic parameters played a crucial role in COVID-19 progression in India. The outcomes of this study would be helpful to control COVID-19 not only in India but globally.

Key words: Coronavirus Disease 2019; Climatic Parameters; India; Correlation Coefficient; Epidemic Peak