A research group led by Professor Akimasa Hirata of Nagoya Institute of Technology found that population density and weather conditions are involved in the spread / convergence period of the new coronavirus and the number of infected people / deaths.
Previous theoretical models of infectious diseases have insufficiently considered relationships such as temperature and humidity and population density.Even in overseas case analysis, the cause of the difference in the number of infected people was unknown because of the large regional variation and many influential factors.Accumulation of the scientific basis is also required for measures to prevent the spread of infection.
The research group analyzed the differences in infection spread period, convergence period, and morbidity rate by prefecture using statistical data on coronavirus.As a result, it was found that the period of spread / convergence of infection is strongly related to the population density, and the effect of "three cs" is approximated by the population density.Furthermore, there was a strong relationship with absolute humidity.Therefore, we conducted multivariate analysis using the three variables of population density, temperature, and absolute humidity.It was in good agreement with the actual expansion / convergence period.
In addition, the cumulative number of infected people and the number of deaths of the new coronavirus were also affected by the population density.Furthermore, when the cumulative number of infected people was normalized by population density, it was related to the proportion of elderly people, temperature, and absolute humidity.Analysis using the six variables of population density, percentage of elderly people, and maximum and minimum values of temperature and absolute humidity gave good agreement between the predicted results and the actual number of infected people.However, in neighboring prefectures such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Aichi, the virus spread / convergence period tended to be longer.
This finding suggests the importance of social distanceing, which corresponds to population density.In addition, under hot and humid conditions, the number of infected people tends to decrease slightly during the expansion / convergence period.It is expected that forecast results will be provided based on population density and meteorological conditions in the future corona outbreak.
