Using NASA Satellite Data Sources and Geometric Deep Learning to Uncover Hidden Patterns in COVID-19 Clinical Severity

TL;DR

This paper leverages NASA satellite data and geometric deep learning to analyze how environmental factors like aerosols, temperature, and humidity influence COVID-19 severity across US counties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dataset of NASA satellite measurements and applies geometric deep learning models to explore environmental impacts on COVID-19 severity.

Findings

Satellite data reveals correlations between environmental factors and COVID-19 severity.

Geometric deep learning effectively classifies COVID-19 severity levels using satellite data.

Environmental variables significantly impact COVID-19 clinical outcomes.

Abstract

As multiple adverse events in 2021 illustrated, virtually all aspects of our societal functioning -- from water and food security to energy supply to healthcare -- more than ever depend on the dynamics of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the social dimensions of weather and climate are noticeably less explored by the machine learning community, largely, due to the lack of reliable and easy access to use data. Here we present a unique not yet broadly available NASA's satellite dataset on aerosol optical depth (AOD), temperature and relative humidity and discuss the utility of these new data for COVID-19 biosurveillance. In particular, using the geometric deep learning models for semi-supervised classification on a county-level basis over the contiguous United States, we investigate the pressing societal question whether atmospheric variables have considerable impact on COVID-19 clinical severity.