Spatial pattern of COVID-19 deaths and infections in small areas of Brazil
Everton Emanuel Campos de Lima, Ezra Gayawan, Emerson Augusto Baptista, Bernardo Lanza Queiroz
Abstract
As at mid August, 2020, Brazil is the second most affected country by the COVID-19 pandemic, with large regional and social differences. In this study, using data from Brazilian Ministry of Health, we analyze the spatial patterns of infection and mortality from Covid-19 across small areas in Brazil. We apply spatial autoregressive Bayesian models and estimate the risks of infection and mortality, taking into account age and sex composition of the population. We also perform a decomposition analysis to study how age composition impacts the differences in mortality and infection rates across regions. Our results indicate that death and infections are spatially distributed forming clusters and hotspots especially in the Northern Amazon, Northeast coast and Southeast of the country. The high mortality risks in the Southeast part of the country, which harbours the major cities can, be explained by the high proportion of elderly population. In the less developed areas of North and Northeast, there is a combination of high infection among young adults, socioeconomic and health access backwardness that results in more deaths.