Urban Vegetation Slows Down the Spread of Coronavirus Disease (COVID‐19) in the United States

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is spreading around the world, and the United States has become the epicenter of the global pandemic. However, little is known about the causes behind the large spatial variability of the COVID‐19 incidence. Here we use path analysis model to quantify the influence of four potential factors (urban vegetation, population density, air temperature, and baseline infection) in shaping the highly heterogeneous transmission patterns of COVID‐19 across the United States. Our results show that urban vegetation can slow down the spread of COVID‐19, and each 1% increase in the percentage of urban vegetation will lead to a 2.6% decrease in cumulative COVID‐19 cases. Additionally, the mediating role of urban vegetation suggests that urban vegetation could reduce increases in cumulative COVID‐19 cases induced by population density and baseline infection. Our findings highlight the importance of urban vegetation in strengthening urban resilience to public health emergencies.
Quantitative analysis of the causes behind the large spatial variability of the incidence of COVID‐19 in the United States is lacking, which seriously hinders our progress in curbing the COVID‐19 transmission. Here we used an innovative method to analyze the role of four important factors (urban vegetation, population density, air temperature, and baseline infection) in shaping the highly heterogeneous transmission patterns of COVID‐19 in the conterminous United States. Our results show that urban vegetation can well explain the large spatial variability of the COVID‐19 incidence and plays an important role in slowing down the spread of COVID‐19. Population density and the timing of government intervention on COVID‐19 are also strongly associated with its spread, whereas the impact of temperature is limited. Our study highlights the importance of urban vegetation as a resilient infrastructure, especially in times of crisis. Increasing the proportion of urban vegetation coverage needs to be incorporated into future urban planning to strengthen the resilience of cities to public health emergencies.


Urban vegetation can well explain the large spatial variability of the COVID‐19 incidence and can slow down the spread of COVID‐19
Population density and the timing of government intervention on COVID‐19 are strongly associated with the spread of COVID‐19
There is no evidence that warm weather would curb the spread of COVID‐19