India will face a greater challenge in controlling the spread of coronavirus in the coming months when the country moves through the phases of Monsoon, Pre-Monsoon and winter seasons, according to a new study by IIT-Bhubaneswar and AIIMS-Bhubaneswar.
With temperatures falling during these seasons, it would be hard for controlling the spread of the deadly virus, the researchers said. The researchers in the study said that every degree rise in temperature corresponds to a 0.99 per cent decrease in the number of cases. Moreover the doubling time also increases by approximately 1.13 days. All these would lead to a slow down of the virus spread, said the study titled “Covid-19 spread in India and its dependence on temperature and relative humidity”.
Assistant Professor of the School of Earth, Ocean and Climatic Sciences at IIT-Bhubaneswar, V Vinoj led the study. They examined the outbreak patterns and cases in 28 states between April and June. They mainly focussed on relationship between Coronavirus spread and environmental factors such as temperature, specific humidity, relative humidity, and solar radiation.
The study abstract has been posted on ResearchGate, a professional network for scientists and researchers. The researchers found that temperature and relative humidity have a significant impact on the disease growth rate and doubling time. The scientists found that more moisture led to a higher growth rate of Covid-19 cases and reduced the doubling time. Moreover, lower specific humidity and higher solar radiation were also found to reduce the spread and increase the doubling time.
In the past respiratory pandemics, the researchers found that temperature and climatic conditions played a big role in the spread of the disease.
