Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 4.0

Effect of Climatic Factors on the Spread of COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Tunisia

Fatma Aribi, Mongi Sghaier

Journal of Scientific Research and Reports · pp. 107–121 · Published 31 Dec 2020

10.9734/jsrr/2020/v26i1030326

Abstract

Since the end of December 2019, the COrona VIrus Disease (COVID-19) is sweeping the world and has caused huge damage to the health, economy, and social life of the communities. Meteorological variables are among the factors influencing the spread of contagious diseases. The aim of this study was to explore the correlation between climatic parameters and COVID-19 spread in Tunisia. To do this, we designed a daily dataset including the number of confirmed and deaths cases, minimum temperature (°C), maximum temperature (°C), mean temperature (°C), rainfall (mm), and wind speed (km/h) during the period of June 27 to October 22, 2020. To investigate the association between climatic variables and COVID-19, the Spearman correlation test was employed. The Mann-Kendall test has been also used to detect the direction of the COVID-19 trend. As many researchers have demonstrated that the incubation period of the ongoing pandemic varies from 1 to 14 days, the correlation of each parameter with COVID-19 was examined on the day of the confirmed cases and deaths, and before 7 and 14 days.  The results showed that out of the five selected climatic variables, four variables were correlated with COVID-19 cases and deaths (statistically significant at a 99% confidence level). A positive correlation of the rainfall with COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths was observed, the highest was 14 days ago. However, negative correlations were observed for minimum, maximum, and mean temperature, the highest was on the day of the incident. Besides, the Mann-Kendall test showed increasing trends for COVID-19 cases and deaths (statistically significant at a 99% confidence level). The results of this study might be useful to understand the role of climatic factors in the spread of COVID-19 and provide insights for healthcare policymakers to well manage this global pandemic.

COVID-19 Tunisia temperature rainfall wind speed correlation.

References (43)

  1. 1 Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China [DOI]
  2. 2 A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019 [DOI]
  3. 3 Nonparametric Tests Against Trend [DOI]
  4. 4 How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? [DOI]
  5. 5 Rank Correlation Methods. [DOI]
  6. 6 Physiological responses of the European cockle Cerastoderma edule (Bivalvia: Cardidae) as indicators of coastal lagoon pollution [DOI]
  7. 7 Correlation between weather and Covid-19 pandemic in Jakarta, Indonesia [DOI]
  8. 8 Effects of temperature and humidity on the daily new cases and new deaths of COVID-19 in 166 countries [DOI]
  9. 9 Investigation of effective climatology parameters on COVID-19 outbreak in Iran [DOI]
  10. 10 COVID-19 transmission in Mainland China is associated with temperature and humidity: A time-series analysis [DOI]
  11. 11 Temperature significantly changes COVID-19 transmission in (sub)tropical cities of Brazil [DOI]
  12. 12 Impact of weather on COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey [DOI]
  13. 13 Seasonality of Infectious Diseases [DOI]
  14. 14 An initial investigation of the association between the SARS outbreak and weather: with the view of the environmental temperature and its variation [DOI]
  15. 15 Association between climate variables and global transmission oF SARS-CoV-2 [DOI]
  16. 16 Relationship between COVID-19 and weather: Case study in a tropical country [DOI]
  17. 17 Association of COVID-19 pandemic with meteorological parameters over Singapore [DOI]
  18. 18 Temperature and precipitation associate with Covid-19 new daily cases: A correlation study between weather and Covid-19 pandemic in Oslo, Norway [DOI]
  19. 19 Effects of meteorological conditions and air pollution on COVID-19 transmission: Evidence from 219 Chinese cities [DOI]
  20. 20 The effect of climate on the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: A review of findings, and statistical and modelling techniques [DOI]
  21. 21 Impact of climate and ambient air pollution on the epidemic growth during COVID-19 outbreak in Japan [DOI]
  22. 22 Impact of the wind conditions on COVID-19 pandemic: A new insight for direction of the spread of the virus [DOI]
  23. 23 No Evidence for Temperature-Dependence of the COVID-19 Epidemic [DOI]
  24. 24 Effect of temperature on the infectivity of COVID-19 [DOI]
  25. 25 COVID-19 lockdown: animal life, ecosystem and atmospheric environment [DOI]
  26. 26 Weather: driving force behind the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China? [DOI]
  27. 27 Investigating the Effects of Meteorological Parameters on COVID-19: Case Study of New Jersey, United States [DOI]
  28. 28 Warmer weather unlikely to reduce the COVID-19 transmission: An ecological study in 202 locations in 8 countries [DOI]
  29. 29 Correlation of ambient temperature and COVID-19 incidence in Canada [DOI]
  30. 30 Effect of meteorological factors on COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh [DOI]
  31. 31 Maximum Daily Temperature, Precipitation, Ultraviolet Light, and Rates of Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in the United States [DOI]
  32. 32 Meteorological impact on the COVID-19 pandemic: A study across eight severely affected regions in South America [DOI]
  33. 33 Effects of climatological parameters on the outbreak spread of COVID-19 in highly affected regions of Spain [DOI]
  34. 34 Estimating the Impact of Daily Weather on the Temporal Pattern of COVID-19 Outbreak in India [DOI]
  35. 35 Association between climatic variables and COVID-19 pandemic in National Capital Territory of Delhi, India [DOI]
  36. 36 A Preliminary Investigation on the Statistical Correlations between SARS-CoV-2 Spread and Local Meteorology [DOI]
  37. 37 Does temperature and humidity influence the spread of COVID-19?: A preliminary report [DOI]
  38. 38 A correlation study between weather and atmosphere with COVID-19 pandemic in Islamabad, Pakistan [DOI]
  39. 39 Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health [DOI]
  40. 40 Environment, Development and Sustainability [DOI]
  41. 41 Role of temperature and humidity in the modulation of the doubling time of COVID-19 cases [DOI]
  42. 42 Effect of Temperature on the Transmission of COVID-19: A Machine Learning Case Study in Spain [DOI]
  43. 43 Effects of weather and policy intervention on COVID-19 infection in Ghana [DOI]

Cited by 4

The COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on the environment

Alessio Facciolà, Pasqualina Laganà, Gabriella Caruso · Environmental Research · 2021

Assessing the impact of air pollution and climate seasonality on COVID-19 multiwaves in Madrid, Spain

Maria A. Zoran, Roxana S. Savastru, Dan M. Savastru · Environmental Research · 2022

Showing 2 of 4 known citations — external sources report more than can currently be individually listed.

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

76

Page views

0

PDF downloads

36

Outbound clicks

4

Citations

Views over time

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.