Abstract: medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.28.24318154; this version posted July 10, 2025. The copyright holder for this preprint
(which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .
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Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the Netherlands, 2020-2022:
statistical evidence for an inverse association with solar radiation and
temperature.
Don Klinkenberg1, Jantien Backer1, Chantal Reusken1,2, Jacco Wallinga1,3
1. Center for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment
(RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands
2. Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
3. Department of Biomedical Data Sciences, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands
Corresponding Author: Don Klinkenberg, RIVM-EPI, Antonie van Leeuwenhoeklaan 9, 7321 MA
Bilthoven, The Netherlands; +31 88 689 8989 ; don.klinkenberg@rivm.nl
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank all collaborators in the Data Analytics, Research, and Automated Reporting (DARA) team in the
Center for Infectious Disease Control for processing and curating all COVID-19 surveillance data. We
thank Dr Scott McDonald for valuable discussions on time series analyses.
No additional funding was received for this study.
Data and code: all data and code are available online at github.com/rivm-syso/covid-seasonality
Keywords: Infectious Disease Transmission; Seasons; Weather; SARS-CoV-2; Respiratory Tract Infections
ABSTRACT
In temperate regions, respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 are better transmitted in winter than in
summer. Understanding how the weather is associated with SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility can enhance
projections of COVID-19 incidence and improve estimation of the effectiveness of control measures.
During the pandemic, transmissibility was tracked by the reproduction number Rt. This study aims to
determine whether information about the daily temperature, absolute humidity, and solar radiation
improves predictions of Rt in the Netherlands from 2020 to 2022, and to quantify the relationship
between Rt and daily weather data. We conducted a regression analysis, accounting for immunity from
vaccination and previous infection, higher transmissibility of new variants, and changes in contact
behaviour due to control measures. Results show a linear association between logRt and daily solar
radiation and temperature, indicating a ratio of Rt in Winter versus Summer of 1.7 (95% CI, 1.4-2.1). The
possibility that this association arises from unrelated seasonal patterns was dismissed, as weather data
from earlier years provided poorer fits with only small effect sizes. This suggests a causal relationship of
solar radiation and temperature with SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility, enhancing confidence in using this
relationship for short-term predictions and other epidemiological analyses.
1
NOTE: This preprint reports new research that has not been certified by peer review and should not be used to guide clinical practice.
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.28.24318154; this version posted July 10, 2025. The copyright holder for this preprint
(which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint..
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