Impacts of regional climate on the COVID-19 pandemic in 116 countries and territories

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to six million confirmed cases by May 31, 2020. We combined the number of monthly confirmed new cases and death with month, latitude, temperature, humidity, rainfall, and sunshine ultraviolet (UV) to explore the climate impact on epidemics in 116 countries and territories. There was a significant decrease in case-fatality rate (from 8.06% to 4.94%) and a significant increase in sunshine UV (from 46 to 68) in April and May. Humid subtropical climate regions had the most confirmed COVID-19 cases (24.4%). The fatality in temperate marine regions was the highest (11.6%). Case-weighted means of absolute latitude, monthly average maximum temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, and sunshine UV were 36.7 degrees, 20.5℃, 63%, 63mm, and 53.5, respectively. Monthly confirmed cases increase as the temperature, rainfall, and sunshine UV rise in cold region-months (r=0.34, 0.26, 0.26, respectively), but no correlation in hot region-months. The fatality was 7.44% in cold region-months (