International Journal of Data Science and Analysis 2022; 8(2): 23-29 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijdsa doi: 10.11648/j.ijdsa.20220802.12 ISSN: 2575-1883 (Print); ISSN: 2575-1891 (Online) Modeling the Impact of Climate Factors on COVID-19 Transmission in Nigeria Audu Musa Mabu 1, * , Babagana Modu 2 , Babagana Ibrahim Bukar 2 , Musa Ibrahim Dagona 3 1 Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria 2 Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Faculty of Science, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria 3 Branch Operations Department, Central Bank of Nigeria, Maiduguri, Nigeria Email address: * Corresponding author To cite this article: Audu Musa Mabu, Babagana Modu, Babagana Ibrahim Bukar, Musa Ibrahim Dagona. Modeling the Impact of Climate Factors on COVID-19 Transmission in Nigeria. International Journal of Data Science and Analysis. Vol. 8, No. 2, 2022, pp. 23-29. doi: 10.11648/j.ijdsa.20220802.12 Received: January 22, 2022; Accepted: March 4, 2022; Published: March 15, 2022 Abstract: Due to spatial and temporal changes in climate, the incidences of COVID-19 is much more higher in some parts of America, Europe and Asia by comparing with Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa. Several studies show the link between climate factors (e.g., temperature rainfall and humidity) and COVID-19 occurrence will be used to aid intervention planning, prevention and control policies. Nigeria is a country that is sensitive to spatial and temporal variability in the occurrence of climate factors, and fully knowing it link with COVID-19 is crucial towards mitigation. In this study, we examined the link by firstly deployed convenience sampling to select three cities (Abuja, Kano and Lagos) where the international airports of Nigeria are situated and also the index case of the country came through Lagos. Secondly, we used the reported cases of COVID-19 from its onset in the country (22/02/2020) up to 21/05/2021. Thirdly, lagged regression was used to explore the link between weekly counts of COVID-19 cases and weekly recorded average of the climate data; including the google trend index as a measure of the populace health seeking behaviour. We found a significant influence of temperature, humidity and heath seeking trend, with a very negligible contributions of precipitation to the occurrence of the COVID-19 in the states investigated. This result will assist policy makers with a prior knowledge to plan for non-pharmaceutical interventions in anticipation of possible outbreak. Keywords: COVID-19, Climate, Lagged, Regression, Trend 1. Introduction Amid the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic, many countries including Nigeria have locked down cities as policy to block human-to-human transmission. Following the aftermath of the regime, successes were recorded across the board as reported [1], thus proving the policy effectiveness. Consequently, several socio-economic problems were unturned, particularly in the developing countries and to some extend had also mildly affected some developed countries. In Nigeria for instance, many jobs were lost, businesses stopped, health facilities overstretched, poverty increased and standard of living had fallen unprecedented. Furthermore, In United States of America alone, about seven million jobs were lost due to the impact of COVID-19 on their economy. Other strong economy like Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany had suffered similar challenges [2]. The climate factors such as temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind speed among others driven COVID-19 transmission [3], and they changed significantly from place to place. In Italy, the first two cases were confirmed in January 2020 but before the end of February, the virus had taken over the northern parts of the country. Thereafter, in March 2020, the toll of new cases and deaths kept swelling, rapidly and overtook the number of registered cases in China [4]. In struggle to cope with the expanding threat, war-like measures were taking by the Government, but Italy was insufficiently prepared to face this unprecedented challenge, and on the brink of collapse,