Can sunshine make it all better?

Preliminary results of the study, published this Tuesday by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, or Miteco, compare the accumulated incidence rate in the last 14 days, which is defined as the number of new daily infections per 100,000 inhabitants with the average temperature corresponding to the same period in all autonomous communities.

The joint research of Aemet, Miteco, and the ISCIII, studies the influence of meteorological variables and atmospheric pollution on the incidence and spread of the disease in Spain in order to develop an Epidemiological surveillance and containment system at state level, based on early warning and monitoring of these environmental factors.

When comparing the number of new daily infections per 100,000 inhabitants with the average temperature for that period, the results indicate the existence of a negative correlation between the two. In other words, the lower the average temperature, the higher the number of cases of coronavirus, which is in line with data obtained from other investigations.

According to Miteco, recent research in relation to the spread of COVID-19 and the SAR-COV-2 Virus also indicated that humidity can influence the spread of the disease, so high temperatures and high humidity significantly reduce virus transmission.

The arrival of spring in the Northern Hemisphere could effectively reduce the transmission of coronavirus, states the study, which also analyses whether other types of environmental factors, such as air pollution and concentrations of PM10 particles can aggravate the disease.

The Ministry says the results will form the basis for a more specific investigation into the environment impact on the spread of COVID-19, through other health variables, such as hospital admissions, ICU admissions and mortality to help identify risk areas in real time.