Health

Covid-19 Decay Index

These indices indicate the time that has to pass until a certain percentage of the present COVID-19 concentration decays. Recent investigations showed that the decay of COVID-19 was enhanced by either increased humidity or temperature (Biryukov et al., 2020). Additionally, there is also a dependence on sunlight, which has an impact on the potential for aerosol transmission of COVID-19 (Schuit et al., 2020). The indices are based on the numbers of the SARS-CoV-2 Airborne Calculator published by Homeland Security.

  • Half-life of the virus outdoors in minutes:
    covid_half_life:min
  • Time in minutes until 90% of the virus died:
    covid_decay_90:min
  • Time in minutes until 99% of the virus died:
    covid_decay_99:min

Examples:

  • The chart below shows the 90 % decay time of COVID-19 for North America, where the influece of heat in the south-western United States on the virus' lifetime can be seen:

    Covid spatial

References

  • Biryukov J, Boydston JA, Dunning RA, Yeager JJ, Wood S, Reese AL, Ferris A, Miller D, Weaver W, Zeitouni NE, Phillips A, Freeburger D, Hooper I, Ratnesar-Shumate S, Yolitz J, Krause M, Williams G, Dawson DG, Herzog A, Dabisch P, Wahl V, Hevey MC, Altamura LA. 2020. Increasing temperature and relative humidity accelerates inactivation of SARS-CoV2 on surfaces. mSphere 5:e00441-20. https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00441-20
  • Michael Schuit, Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate, Jason Yolitz, Gregory Williams, Wade Weaver, Brian Green, David Miller, Melissa Krause, Katie Beck, Stewart Wood, Brian Holland, Jordan Bohannon, Denise Freeburger, Idris Hooper, Jennifer Biryukov, Louis A Altamura, Victoria Wahl, Michael Hevey, Paul Dabisch, Airborne SARS-CoV-2 Is Rapidly Inactivated by Simulated Sunlight, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 222, Issue 4, 15 August 2020, Pages 564–571, https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/4/564/5856149
  • https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/sars-airborne-calculator

Pollen Concentrations

Pollen concentrations are available in grains per cubic meter.

birch_pollen:grainsm3

grass_pollen:grainsm3

olive_pollen:grainsm3

ragweed_pollen:grainsm3

pollen:grainsm3 gives the total pollen concentration in grains per cubic meter.

Examples:

  • The grass pollen concentration in July 2019 in Florence, Italy:
    Pollution grasspollen
    Current situation:
    https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-03-15T00Z--2024-03-18T00Z:PT1H/grass_pollen:grainsm3/43.7800148,11.2059487/html
  • Part of the output as CSV:
    validdate;grass_pollen:grainsm3
    2019-07-20T00:00:00Z;8.0
    2019-07-20T01:00:00Z;7.3
    2019-07-20T02:00:00Z;6.2
    2019-07-20T03:00:00Z;5.9
    2019-07-20T04:00:00Z;5.3
    2019-07-20T05:00:00Z;7.6
    2019-07-20T06:00:00Z;16.3
    2019-07-20T07:00:00Z;12.6
    2019-07-20T08:00:00Z;11.1
    2019-07-20T09:00:00Z;8.9
    2019-07-20T10:00:00Z;7.6
    2019-07-20T11:00:00Z;7.0
    2019-07-20T12:00:00Z;7.3
    2019-07-20T13:00:00Z;8.1
    2019-07-20T14:00:00Z;9.5

Pollen Warning

The pollen warning returns warning levels for different types of pollen loads according to the DWD.

<type>_pollen_warning:idx

Available types of pollen: hazel, alder, ash, birch, grass, rye, mugwort, ragweed, max(maximum pollen load)

WarningDescription
0No pollen load
0.5No or small pollen load
1Small pollen load
1.5Small or moderate pollen load
2Moderate pollen load
2.5Moderate or high pollen load
3High pollen load

Examples: