Meteorological factors, population immunity, and COVID-19 incidence: A global multi-city analysis

Feurer, D; Riffe, T; Kniffka, MS; Acosta, E; Armstrong, B; Mistry, M; Lowe, R; Royé, D; Hashizume, M; Madaniyazi, L; +40 more...Ng, CFS; Tobias, A; Íñiguez, C; Vicedo-Cabrera, AM; Ragettli, MS; Lavigne, E; Correa, PM; Ortega, NV; Kyselý, J; Urban, A; Orru, H; Indermitte, E; Maasikmets, M; Dallavalle, M; Schneider, A; Honda, Y; Alahmad, B; Zanobetti, A; Schwartz, J; Carrasco, G; Holobâca, IH; Kim, H; Lee, W; Bell, ML; Scovronick, N; Acquaotta, F; Coélho, Micheline de Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio; Diaz, MH; Arellano, EEF; Michelozzi, P; Stafoggia, M; de’Donato, F; Rao, S; Di Ruscio, F; Seposo, X; Guo, Y; Tong, S; Masselot, P; Gasparrini, AORCID logo; Sera, F and (2024) Meteorological factors, population immunity, and COVID-19 incidence: A global multi-city analysis. Environmental epidemiology, 8 (6). ISSN 2474-7882 DOI: 10.1097/EE9.0000000000000338
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Objectives: While COVID-19 continues to challenge the world, meteorological variables are thought to impact COVID-19 transmission. Previous studies showed evidence of negative associations between high temperature and absolute humidity on COVID-19 transmission. Our research aims to fill the knowledge gap on the modifying effect of vaccination rates and strains on the weather-COVID-19 association.

Methods: Our study included COVID-19 data from 439 cities in 22 countries spanning 3 February 2020 – 31 August 2022 and meteorological variables (temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, solar radiation, and precipitation). We used a two-stage time-series design to assess the association between meteorological factors and COVID-19 incidence. For the exposure modeling, we used distributed lag nonlinear models with a lag of up to 14 days. Finally, we pooled the estimates using a random effect meta-analytic model and tested vaccination rates and dominant strains as possible effect modifiers.

Results: Our results showed an association between temperature and absolute humidity on COVID-19 transmission. At 5 °C, the relative risk of COVID-19 incidence is 1.22-fold higher compared to a reference level at 17 °C. Correlated with temperature, we observed an inverse association for absolute humidity. We observed a tendency of increased risk on days without precipitation, but no association for relative humidity and solar radiation. No interaction between vaccination rates or strains on the weather-COVID-19 association was observed.

Conclusions: This study strengthens previous evidence of a relationship of temperature and absolute humidity with COVID-19 incidence. Furthermore, no evidence was found that vaccinations and strains significantly modify the relationship between environmental factors and COVID-19 transmission.

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