Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-26 16:48:53|Editor: huaxia
BEIJING, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have discovered that more than half of the confirmed novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases occurred in places with the air temperature between five to 15 degrees Celsius.
The researchers from Lanzhou University hoped to learn about the environmental parameters within which the SARS-CoV-2 can survive in order to understand its global dispersal pattern.
They investigated the impact of ambient temperature on global dispersal of COVID-19, according to their recent research article published in the journal of Science of The Total Environment.
The relationship between daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 and meteorological conditions including temperature and humidity was studied based on the data of approximately 3.75 million global confirmed COVID-19 cases in 185 countries and regions from January 21 to May 6.
They found that the places from five to 15 degrees Celsius reported 60 percent of the confirmed cases of the COVID-19. Moreover, approximately 73.8 percent of the confirmed cases were concentrated in regions with an absolute humidity of three to 10 grams in each cubic meter.
Their findings indicated that the SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be spreading toward higher latitudes and suggested that there was an optimal climatic zone in which the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 markedly increases in the ambient environment including the surfaces of objects.
The spreading of the COVID-19 outbreak is affected by several factors. The researchers investigated the natural factors affecting the pandemic.
They warned that the COVID-19 pandemic may spread cyclically and outbreaks may recur in large cities in the mid-latitudes in autumn 2020. "We cannot rely on the conjecture that COVID-19 outbreak will stop with an increase in the temperature," said Huang Zhongwei, first author of the research article. Enditem
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