Choi Yeon-Woo, Tuel Alexandre, Eltahir Elfatih A B
Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge MA USA.
Now at Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research Institute of Geography University of Bern Bern Switzerland.
Geohealth. 2021 Jun 1;5(6):e2021GH000413. doi: 10.1029/2021GH000413. eCollection 2021 Jun.
Viral respiratory diseases (VRDs), such as influenza and COVID-19, are thought to spread faster during winter than during summer. It has been previously argued that cold and dry conditions are more conducive to the transmission of VRDs than warm and humid climates, although this relationship appears restricted to temperate regions and the causal relationship is not well understood. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 causing COVID-19 has emerged as a serious global public health problem after the first COVID-19 reports in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. It is still unclear whether this novel respiratory disease will ultimately prove to be a seasonal endemic disease. Here, we suggest that air drying capacity (ADC; an atmospheric state variable that controls the fate/evolution of the virus-laden droplets) and ultraviolet radiation (UV) are probable environmental determinants in shaping the transmission of COVID-19 at the seasonal time scale. These variables, unlike temperature and humidity, provide a physically based framework consistent with the apparent seasonal variability in COVID-19 and prevalent across a broad range of climates (e.g., Germany and India). Since this disease is known to be influenced by the compounding effect of social, biological, and environmental determinants, this study does not claim that these environmental determinants exclusively shape the seasonality of COVID-19. However, we argue that ADC and UV play a significant role in COVID-19 dynamics at the seasonal scale. These findings could help guide the development of a sound adaptation strategy against the pandemic over the coming seasons.
病毒性呼吸道疾病（VRD），如流感和新冠肺炎，被认为在冬季比夏季传播得更快。此前有人认为，寒冷干燥的环境比温暖潮湿的气候更有利于VRD的传播，尽管这种关系似乎仅限于温带地区，且因果关系尚未完全明了。2019年末中国武汉首次报告新冠肺炎病例后，导致新冠肺炎的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2已成为一个严重的全球公共卫生问题。目前仍不清楚这种新型呼吸道疾病最终是否会被证明是一种季节性地方病。在此，我们认为空气干燥能力（ADC；一个控制载有病毒的飞沫命运/演变的大气状态变量）和紫外线辐射（UV）可能是在季节性时间尺度上影响新冠肺炎传播的环境决定因素。与温度和湿度不同，这些变量提供了一个基于物理的框架，与新冠肺炎明显的季节性变化一致，且在广泛的气候条件下（如德国和印度）普遍存在。由于已知这种疾病受社会、生物和环境决定因素的综合影响，本研究并不声称这些环境决定因素完全决定了新冠肺炎的季节性。然而，我们认为ADC和UV在季节性尺度上的新冠肺炎动态中起着重要作用。这些发现有助于指导未来几个季节制定合理的应对疫情的适应策略。
