The association between COVID-19 data and meteorological factors in Indonesia

Abstract On March 2, 2020, the first Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) case was reported in Jakarta, Indonesia. One and half month later (15/05/2020), the cumulative number of infection cases was 16496 with a total of 1076 mortalities. This study is aimed to investigate the possible role of weather in the early cases of COVID-19 incidence in six selected cities in Indonesia. Daily data of temperature and relative humidity from weather stations nearby each city were collected during the period 3 March - 30 April 2020, together with data of COVID-19 cases. Correlation tests and regression analysis were performed to examine the association of those two data series. In addition, we analysed the distribution of COVID-19 with respect to weather data to estimate the effective range of weather data supporting COVID-19 incidence. Our results reveal that weather data is generally associated with COVID-19 incidence. The daily average temperature (T-ave) and relative humidity (RH) presents significant positive and negative correlation with COVID-19 data, respectively. However, the correlation coefficients are weak with the strongest correlations found at 5 day lag time i.e. 0.37 (-0.41) for T-ave (RH). The regression analysis consistently confirmed this relation. The distribution analysis reveals that the majority of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia occurred in the daily temperature range of 25-31 o C and relative humidity of 74-92%. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 incidence in Indonesia has a weak association with weather conditions. Therefore, non-meteorological factors seem to play a larger role and should be given greater consideration in preventing the spread of COVID-19.