The new report was published April 8 in the British Journal of Dermatology. For the study, Weller's group analyzed all recorded COVID-19 deaths in the continental United States from January to April 2020, and then compared that with data on levels of the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays in nearly 2,500 U.S. counties during the same period. People in regions with the highest level of exposure to UVA rays (which make up 95% of the sun's UV light) were less likely to die of COVID-19 than those in regions with the lowest levels of UVA exposure, the findings showed. The researchers conducted similar analyses in England and Italy and came up with the same results.