AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY OF CLIMATIC FACTORS AND COVID-19 MAKASSAR = AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY OF CLIMATIC FACTORS AND COVID-19 MAKASSAR

Covid-19 has already spread to about 232 countries and infected about 523,887,351 people worldwide including 6,307,021 deaths. Covid-19 spreads through droplets and is influenced by climatic factors such as wind speed, temperature, and humidity in the transmission process. This study aims to determine the correlation between climatic factors such as temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, duration of sunshine, wind speed, and the number of COVID-19 cases in the city of Makassar 2020-2022.
This research applied ecological research design. Correlations between weekly confirmed COVID-19 cases and climate factors were measured using R software using bivariate analysis Spearman correlation test. COVID-19 cases data were obtained from the Health Ministry of Makassar City from 19 March 2020 to 14 September 2022 and climate factors data were obtained from the Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysical Agency Makassar, Indonesia.
This analysis shows a significant and weak correlation between average temperature (R =- 0.36, p = 0.001), average humidity (R = 0.27, p = 0.0023), duration of sunshine (R = - 0.25, p = 0.0039), rainfall (R = 0.19, p = 0.029), average wind speed (R = 0.28, p = 0.0013) and Covid-19 weekly cases in the city of Makassar.
This research shows that there is a negative-weak correlation between sun exposure and COVID-19 cases while rainfall and wind speed has a positive correlation with COVID-19 cases

Keywords: Covid-19 weekly cases, climatic factors, Makassar City