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The role of environmental factors on transmission rates of the COVID-19 outbreak: an initial assessment in two spatial scales.

ABSTRACT: First identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has affected over 16,800,000 people worldwide as of July 29, 2020 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. Influenza studies have shown that influenza viruses survive longer on surfaces or in droplets in cold and dry air, thus increasing the likelihood of subsequent transmission. A similar hypothesis has been postulated for the transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. It is important to propose methodologies to understand the effects of environmental factors on this ongoing outbreak to support decision-making pertaining to disease control. Here, we examine the spatial variability of the basic reproductive numbers of COVID-19 across provinces and cities in China and show that environmental variables alone cannot explain this variability. Our findings suggest that changes in weather (i.e., increase of temperature and humidity as spring and summer months arrive in the Northern Hemisphere) will not necessarily lead to declines in case counts without the implementation of drastic public health interventions.

SUBMITTER: Poirier C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7552413 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The role of environmental factors on transmission rates of the COVID-19 outbreak: an initial assessment in two spatial scales.

Poirier Canelle C Luo Wei W Majumder Maimuna S MS Liu Dianbo D Mandl Kenneth D KD Mooring Todd A TA Santillana Mauricio M

Scientific reports 20201012 1

First identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has affected over 16,800,000 people worldwide as of July 29, 2020 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. Influenza studies have shown that influenza viruses survive longer on surfaces or in droplets in cold and dry air, thus increasing the likelihood of subsequent transmission. A similar hypothesis has been postulated for the transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused b ...[more]

PMID: 33046802

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Project description:Large reservoirs are an increasingly common feature across tropical landscapes because of their importance for water supply, flood control and hydropower, but their ecological conditions are infrequently evaluated. Our objective was to assess the range of disturbances for two large tropical reservoirs and their influences on benthic macroinvertebrates. We tested three hypotheses: i) a wide variation in the level of environmental disturbance can be observed among sites in the reservoirs; ii) the two reservoirs would exhibit a different degree of disturbance level; and iii) the magnitude of disturbance would influence the structure and composition of benthic assemblages. For each reservoir, we assessed land use (macroscale), physical habitat structure (mesoscale), and water quality (microscale). We sampled 40 sites in the littoral zones of both Três Marias and São Simão Reservoirs (Minas Gerais, Brazil). At the macroscale, we measured cover percentages of land use categories in buffer areas at each site, where each buffer was a circular arc of 250 m. At the mesoscale, we assessed the presence of human disturbances in the riparian and drawdown zones at the local (site) scale. At the microscale, we assessed water quality at each macroinvertebrate sampling station using the Micro Disturbance Index (MDI). To evaluate anthropogenic disturbance of each site, we calculated an integrated disturbance index (IDI) from a buffer disturbance index (BDI) and a local disturbance index (LDI). For each site, we calculated richness and abundance of benthic macroinvertebrates, Chironomidae genera richness, abundance and percent Chironomidae individuals, abundance and percent EPT individuals, richness and percent EPT taxa, abundance and percent resistant individuals, and abundance and percent non-native individuals. We also evaluated the influence of disturbance on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages at the entire-reservoir scale. The BDI, LDI and IDI had significantly greater average scores at São Simão than at Três Marias Reservoir. The significantly greater differences in IDI scores for São Simão Reservoir were reflected in 10 of the 13 Ekman-Birge dredge biotic metrics and in 5 of 13 of the kick-net biotic metrics. We also observed clear ranges of disturbances within both reservoirs at macro (BDI) and mesoscales (LDI) and in water quality, but an insignificant range in MDI results. However, we found no significant relationship between the benthic macroinvertebrate metrics and the BDI, LDI, and IDI among sites within a single reservoir. Hence, we believe that benthic macroinvertebrate distributions in those reservoirs were influenced by other factors or that reservoir macroinvertebrates (dominated by chironomids) were poor indicators of disturbance at the site scale.

Dataset Information

The role of environmental factors on transmission rates of the COVID-19 outbreak: an initial assessment in two spatial scales.

Publications

The role of environmental factors on transmission rates of the COVID-19 outbreak: an initial assessment in two spatial scales.

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