The impact of temperature on the transmissibility and virulence of COVID-19 in Tokyo, Japan
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Abstract
Assessing the impact of temperature on COVID-19 epidemiology is critical for implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions. However, few studies have accounted for the nature of contagious diseases, i.e., their dependent happenings. We aimed to quantify the impact of temperature on the transmissibility and virulence of COVID-19 in Tokyo, Japan, employing two epidemiological measurements of transmissibility and severity: the effective reproduction number ( $$R_{t}$$ R t ) and case fatality risk (CFR). We estimated the $$R_{t}$$ R t and time-delay adjusted CFR and to subsequently assess the nonlinear and delayed effect of temperature on $$R_{t}$$ R t and time-delay adjusted CFR. For $$R_{t}$$ R t at low temperatures, the cumulative relative risk (RR) at the first temperature percentile (3.3 °C) was 1.3 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1–1.7). As for the virulence to humans, moderate cold temperatures were associated with higher CFR, and CFR also increased as the temperature rose. The cumulative RR at the 10th and 99th percentiles of temperature (5.8 °C and 30.8 °C) for CFR were 3.5 (95% CI: 1.3–10.0) and 6.4 (95% CI: 4.1–10.1). Our results suggest the importance to take precautions to avoid infection in both cold and warm seasons to avoid severe cases of COVID-19. The results and our proposed approach will also help in assessing the possible seasonal course of COVID-19 in the future.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.15.21258529: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to be noted. First, the assumption for epidemiological time-delays (e.g., generation time and incubation period, etc.) was imposed not to be contracted by meteorological factors or interventions. Second, we did not take into consideration the uncertainty of variables in the regression models, which were …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.15.21258529: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to be noted. First, the assumption for epidemiological time-delays (e.g., generation time and incubation period, etc.) was imposed not to be contracted by meteorological factors or interventions. Second, we did not take into consideration the uncertainty of variables in the regression models, which were derived from the mathematical models. Third, age-specific CFR was not estimated in the present study due to scarce data. However, we attempted to make the best use of the data with back-projected incidence on illness onset dates and controlled the estimated incidence as a confounder in the regression model. Forth, since we used Tokyo data and other geographical locations were not analyzed, the results may vary under different climates. Thus, future studies in multiple locations with our proposed approach are needed. Fifth, the change of ascertainment rate and other confounders (e.g., comorbidity) were not considered in the regression model for CFR. However, we used the empirical data for severity from 25th May 2020 when the state of emergency was lifted, i.e., the end of the first wave of the epidemic in Tokyo in order to avoid higher ascertainment bias and overestimation of CFR. Despite such limitations, we believe that the present study has provided comprehensive and useful insights on the association between temperature and the characteristics of COVID-19. Higher transmissibility is likely to be seen at low temperatures, while higher severity i...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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