The correspondence between the structure of the terrestrial mobility network and the spreading of COVID-19 in Brazil

Abstract

The inter-cities mobility network is of great importance in understanding outbreaks, especially in Brazil, a continental-dimension country. We adopt the data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the terrestrial flow of people between cities from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics database in two scales: cities from Brazil, without the North region, and from the São Paulo State. Grounded on the complex networks approach, and considering that the mobility network serves as a proxy for the SARS-CoV-2 spreading, the nodes and edges represent cities and flows, respectively. Network centrality measures such as strength and degree are ranked and compared to the list of cities, ordered according to the day that they confirmed the first case of COVID-19. The strength measure captures the cities with a higher vulnerability of receiving new cases. Besides, it follows the interiorization process of SARS-CoV-2 in the São Paulo State when the network flows are above specific thresholds. Some countryside cities such as Feira de Santana (Bahia State), Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo State), and Caruaru (Pernambuco State) have strength comparable to states’ capitals. Our analysis offers additional tools for understanding and decision support to inter-cities mobility interventions regarding the SARS-CoV-2 and other epidemics.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• Public Health Surveillance
• Epidemics