Severe airport sanitarian control could slow down the spreading of COVID-19 pandemics in Brazil
Sérvio Pontes Ribeiro,
Alcides Castro e Silva,
Wesley Dáttilo,
Alexandre Barbosa Reis,
Aristóteles Góes-Neto,
Luiz Carlos Junior Alcantara,
Marta Giovanetti,
Wendel Coura-Vital,
Geraldo Wilson Fernandes,
Vasco Ariston C. Azevedo
Affiliations
Sérvio Pontes Ribeiro
Núcleo de Pesquisas em Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Alcides Castro e Silva
Laboratório da Ciência da Complexidade-Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Wesley Dáttilo
Red de Ecoetología, Instituto de Ecología AC, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
Alexandre Barbosa Reis
Núcleo de Pesquisas em Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Aristóteles Góes-Neto
Laboratório de Biologia Molecular e Computacional de Fungos-Departamento de Microbiologia-ICB, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Luiz Carlos Junior Alcantara
Laboratório de Flavivírus, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Marta Giovanetti
Laboratório de Flavivírus, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Wendel Coura-Vital
Núcleo de Pesquisas em Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Geraldo Wilson Fernandes
Departamento de Genética, Ecologia & Evolução/ICB, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Vasco Ariston C. Azevedo
Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular-Departamento de Genética, Ecologia & Evolução-ICB, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Background We investigated a likely scenario of COVID-19 spreading in Brazil through the complex airport network of the country, for the 90 days after the first national occurrence of the disease. After the confirmation of the first imported cases, the lack of a proper airport entrance control resulted in the infection spreading in a manner directly proportional to the amount of flights reaching each city, following the first occurrence of the virus coming from abroad. Methodology We developed a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model divided in a metapopulation structure, where cities with airports were demes connected by the number of flights. Subsequently, we further explored the role of the Manaus airport for a rapid entrance of the pandemic into indigenous territories situated in remote places of the Amazon region. Results The expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus between cities was fast, directly proportional to the city closeness centrality within the Brazilian air transportation network. There was a clear pattern in the expansion of the pandemic, with a stiff exponential expansion of cases for all the cities. The more a city showed closeness centrality, the greater was its vulnerability to SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions We discussed the weak pandemic control performance of Brazil in comparison with other tropical, developing countries, namely India and Nigeria. Finally, we proposed measures for containing virus spreading taking into consideration the scenario of high poverty.
