Linking Outdoor Air Temperature and SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in the US Using a Two Parameter Transmission Model

  1. Ty Newell

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Abstract

Outdoor temperature lower than 50F and greater than 70F is shown to nearly double the transmission efficiency of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Outdoor temperature is an important factor behind the current surge in US Covid-19 cases. Correlation of northern state infection data and outdoor temperatures is used to identify the change in disease transmission efficiency as northern states passed through the lower temperature bound (50F) in spring, and more recently transitioned to temperatures above the higher bound (70F). At current disease transmission efficiency levels, social distancing must be increased above a UMD Social Distance Index (SDI) level of 36 to stop the accelerated increase of daily infection cases. At current disease transmission efficiency (G=0.19) and SDI of 33, the US will approach 150,000 infections per day in September before declining as average US temperature falls below 70F.

A primary reason for enhanced disease transmission below 50F and above 70F is attributed to inadequate indoor ventilation. Swing season occurs when outdoor temperatures are between 50F and 70F, and is the time of year when homes and buildings are opened to the outdoors. Increased fresh air ventilation (greater than 40cfm per person), improved air filtration (MERV11 and greater filters), and UVGI (Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation, 0.02W UV per cfm airflow) coupled with wearing face masks, 6ft distancing and surface sanitation are estimated to reduce indoor disease transmission probability to a third of the transmission probability resulting from standard building ventilation practice.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.20.20158238: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.20.20158238v1 on medRxiv