Evaluation of the Combined Effect of Mobility and Seasonality on the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Lombardy-Based Study

Abstract Restrictions to human mobility had a significant role in limiting SARS-CoV-2 spread. It has been suggested that seasonality might affect viral transmissibility. Our study retrospectively investigates the combined effect that seasonal environmental factors and human mobility played on transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in Lombardy, Italy, in 2020.Environmental data were collected from accredited open-source web services. Aggregated mobility data for different points of interests were collected from Google Community Reports. The Reproduction number (R t ) , based on the weekly counts of confirmed symptomatic COVID-19, non-imported cases, was used as a proxy for SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility. Assuming a non-linear correlation between selected variables, we used a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) to investigate with univariate and multivariate analyses the association between seasonal environmental factors (UV-index, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure), location-specific mobility indices, and R t . UV-index was the most effective environmental variable in predicting R t . An optimal two-week lag-effect between changes in explanatory variables and R t was selected. The association between R t variations and individually taken mobility indices differed: Grocery & Pharmacy, Transit Station and Workplaces displayed the best performances in predicting R t when individually added to the multivariate model together with UV-index, accounting for 85.0%, 85.5% and 82.6% of R t variance, respectively. According to our results, both seasonality and social interaction policies played a significant role in curbing the pandemic. Non-linear models including UV-index and location-specific mobility indices can predict a considerable amount of SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility in Lombardy during 2020, emphasizing the importance of social distancing policies to keep viral transmissibility under control, especially during colder months.