A paper by four Chinese professors concludes that high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus. This conclusion is based on a study of all 100 Chinese cities with more than 40 cases of the virus.
The professors found that a one degree Celsius increase in temperature and a one percent increase in relative humidity lower “R” by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. “R” is the effective reproductive number of the virus. As I understand it, if that number drops below 1.0, it means the virus is dying off faster than it is reproducing.
The authors note that their findings are “consistent with the fact that the high temperature and high humidity significantly reduce the transmission of influenza.” They conclude that “the arrival of summer and rainy season in the northern hemisphere can effectively reduce the transmission of the COVID-19.”
The study is also consistent with the findings of a paper I wrote about here. That study looked at average temperatures in areas across the globe that the virus was hitting at the time. The Chinese study is a city-by-city comparison in the same country that controls for population density and GDP per capita.
For what it’s worth.
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