An Indian study has found that there exists a "very strong" correlation between high temperature and coronavirus.
The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) of India's Nagpur has found this "very strong" correlation between the increase of average daily temperature and decreased COVID-19 spread of almost up to 85 percent for some select cities of the country such as the Maharashtra state and Karnataka state.
NEERI is a laboratory under India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and this research was based on a mathematical model, reported The Times of India on Wednesday.
The research sourced the cases data from the WHO while getting the temperature data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The study related the average temperature in real-time and also the relative humidity are related to the data with increasing coronavirus cases in the two states mentioned.
Cases decreased when it was more than 25°C hot
Further the study said, considering the gross values of temperature and relative humidity in two states, the increase in average day temperature more than 25°C and above caused a reduction in the number of coronavirus cases.
Moreover it pointed out that the hot climate in India might benefit the containment of novel coronavirus infections in the country. Moreover, the social distancing measures taken were more outweighed than benefits of temperature and humidity.
Hemant Bherwani, a scientist from NEERI from the director's research cell at the Centre of Strategic Urban Management told that while temperature and humidity were considered for their effects on the spreading of coronavirus, they also included the distancing measures. Also, he said that the benefits of environmental factor might not be visible if social distancing is not followed.
Contradictory results
However, many studies reported that these environmental factors don't play a role such as a study published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) said when it studied conditions of temperatures higher than 40 degrees Celsius and average humidity of 60 percent found that "The transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 showed no signs of weakening in warm and humid conditions"
A Chinese study also showed similar results as found by NEERI that temperature decreased coronavirus cases. However, the World Health Organization's myth busters said, "You can catch COVID-19, no matter how sunny or hot the weather is. Countries with hot weather have reported cases of COVID-19."
