ber of confirmed COVID-19 cases from December 2019 through June 2020, as well as on country/region-specific variables, e.g. socioeconomic conditions and screening effort (number of SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests conducted), that could potentially affect the number of COVID-19 cases. Specifically, we explored the roles of climate, international mobility, and region-specific conditions in the disease expansion by controlling covariates. In this analysis, we evaluated the relative importance of climate (temperature and prec