Answer Bank: Can latitude influence the spread of coronavirus?

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) becomes a global pandemic, there are some geographical patterns of the outbreak areas that have been discussed. 

"To date, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ... has established significant community spread in cities and regions only along a narrow east west distribution roughly along the 30-50 degree (lines of latitude) corridor at consistently similar weather patterns," according to a team of U.S. and Iranian researchers of the Global Virus Network (GVN). 

Their research suggests that latitude could influence the spread of the virus. The study was published on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) but it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet. 

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