Correlation between weather and <scp>COVID</scp> ‐19 pandemic in India: An empirical investigation
Prayas Sharma, Ashish Kumar Singh, Bharti Agrawal, Anukriti Sharma
Abstract
This study is an attempt to find and analyze the correlation between Covid-19 pandemic and weather conditions in Indian context. Secondary data analysis of surveillance data of COVID-19 is taken from Wikipedia (updating information from World Health Organization) & statista.com and weather data through Power Data Access Viewer (DAV) (power.Iarc.nasa.gov) from NASA after mentioning latitude and longitude of India. The minimum temperature (°C) at 2 metre, maximum temperature (°C) at 2 metre, temperature (°C) at 2 metre and relative humidity (%) are taken as component of weather. To find the association, Spearman's rank correlation test was applied. The minimum, maximum temperature (°C) at 2 m, temperatures (°C) at 2 m and humidity at 2 m are significantly correlated with COVID-19 pandemic cases (r = 0.93, 0.94, 0.83, and 0.30) at 99% two-tailed significance level. The findings serve as an initial evidence to reduce the incidence rate of COVID-19 in India and useful in policy making.