太阳活动变化与新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情的发展

Changes in solar activity and the development of the COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic

已有研究表明,新型冠状病毒肺炎(以下简称"新冠肺炎")和以往的传染病大流行与太阳活动存在着密不可分的关系。但是究竟存在什么样的关系,尚未形成一致的意见。并且这些研究大多关注于大流行事件发生的年份与太阳活动周峰谷值年份之间的对应关系,却很少分析大流行的发展过程与太阳活动过程之间的关系。本文基于2020-01-01—2021-09-30太阳黑子数和新冠肺炎确诊数的日、周和月数据,通过序列对比、相关分析以及变化周期比较,探究了两者之间的关系以及可能的成因联系,并利用太阳黑子变化趋势对未来新冠肺炎疫情的发展趋势进行了预测。结果表明:新冠肺炎新增病例数与太阳黑子数呈显著正相关,不仅变化趋势和过程一致,并且存在着多个相似的变化周期。假设其他因素不发生变化,随着太阳活动的增强,未来新冠肺炎新增确诊数可能还会持续地增加,到2022年9月平均每月新增新冠肺炎病例,低方案约为2500万-3000万,中方案可达3300万-3800万,高方案则达4000万-4600万。但是,随着疫苗的普遍接种以及群体免疫力的形成,未来新冠肺炎新增确诊数也有可能比预测值小。

Background,aim,and scope Studies have shown that the occurrence of COVID-19 pneumonia and past infectious diseases outbreaks are closely related to changes in solar activity.However,there is no consensus on what kind of relationship exists,and most of these studies focus on the correspondence between the year of pandemic events and the peaks and valleys of the solar cycle,but rarely analyze the relationship between the development process of a pandemic and solar activity.This paper analyzes the COVID-19 pneumonia data and the sunspot index in the past 639 d,in order to explore the relationship between them.Materials and methods Basedon the daily,weekly and monthly data on the sunspots number and the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 pneumonia from January 1,2020 to September 30,2021,this paper explores their relationship through sequence comparison,correlation analysis,ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and period analysis,and discusses the possible causal relationship between them.The developmental trend of COVID-19 in the future is predicted on the basis of the trend in sunspots.Results The development process of COVID-19 pneumonia is positively correlated with the change of solar activity on daily,weekly and monthly scales,and not only has the same trend,but also has the same periodic components,for example 3.49—4.04 d,23.67—24.58 d,106.50 d,and 319.49 d.Discussion The development of COVID-19 pneumonia has a strong positive correlation with the changes in sunspots.This indicates that the development of COVID-19 pneumonia may be affected by solar activity.Conclusions The development of COVID-19 pneumonia may be affected by solar activity.If other factors do not change,with the increase of solar activity the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 pneumonia in the future will continue to increase.By September 2022,the average monthly increase in COVID-19 pneumonia cases will be at least 25-30 million,with a median of 33-38 million,and a high scenario of 40-46 million.Recommendations and perspectives We must pay attention to this phenomenon and take measures as soon as possible.With the implementation of vaccination measures and the presentation of collective immune effects,the number of new cases of COVID-19 pneumonia in the future may be smaller than predicted.