Warm areas have low Covid cases: Study

New Delhi, March 24

A preliminary study of Covid-19 progression trends across the world by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has shown that much lesser cases were seen in hotter zones.

Qasim Bukhari and Yusuf Jameel of MIT in an early trends research on the pandemic concluded that more research should be done conclusively establish the impact of higher temperatures and humidity on disease trends.

MIT study indicates that as many as 90 per cent of the 2019-nCoV transmissions until March 22 occurred in regions with temperature between 3 °C and 17 °C and absolute humidity between 4 to 9g/m3 (grams per cubic metre).

“The total number of cases in countries with mean Jan-Feb-early March temperature more than 18 °C and absolute humidity of over 9 g/m3 is less than 6 per cent,” say the authors.

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has spread rapidly to several countries and has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation.

As of Tuesday night the disease had been reported by 189 nations, an unprecedented scale, with 334,981 confirmed cases and 14,652 deaths worldwide. — TNS