When COVID-19 began to spread, environmental scientists recognized that the world faced a dangerous upper respiratory viral disease that might exhibit sensitivity to seasonal weather conditions. Many of these scientists have sought to aid COVID-19 response by studying the potential to monitor, forecast, or project disease transmission rates or symptom severity as a function of climate zone, season, meteorological variability, air quality, and other environmental parameters1,2,3,4. The rapid pace of COVID-19 research has meant that studies on this topic appeared on pre-print servers and then on news and social media outlets faster than the information could be cross-checked and peer-reviewed. As many such studies accumulated, it became clear that reported evidence was often contradictory, and in some cases studies were being selected subjectively in a manner that seemed intended to suppor...