Open AccessStatistical analysis of the impact of environmental temperature on the exponential growth rate of cases infected by COVID-19
Author(s) -
G. Livadiotis
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0233875
Subject(s) - exponential growth , exponential function , covid-19 , growth rate , statistical analysis , confidence interval , statistics , exponential distribution , growth curve (statistics) , mathematics , environmental science , medicine , mathematical analysis , geometry , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty)
We perform a statistical analysis for understanding the effect of the environmental temperature on the exponential growth rate of the cases infected by COVID-19 for US and Italian regions. In particular, we analyze the datasets of regional infected cases, derive the growth rates for regions characterized by a readable exponential growth phase in their evolution spread curve and plot them against the environmental temperatures averaged within the same regions, derive the relationship between temperature and growth rate, and evaluate its statistical confidence. The results clearly support the first reported statistically significant relationship of negative correlation between the average environmental temperature and exponential growth rates of the infected cases. The critical temperature, which eliminates the exponential growth, and thus the COVID-19 spread in US regions, is estimated to be T C = 86.1 ± 4.3 F 0 .