Rafael CATÃO, Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Brazil
Raul Borges GUIMARÃES, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil
Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are one of the major challenges of health care systems in the globalized world. COVID-19 emerged from Wuhan, in China, in Decembre 2019, to become a major pandemic, affecting almost all countries in the world in the year 2020. The provisory outcome of this pandemic - in terms of spread of diffusion, number of cases and deaths - are related to several components, such as political and social engagement and the use of scientific evidence to drive public policy. The process of spatial diffusion of infectious diseases is well known (HAGGETT, 2000) and derives from Hangerstrand (1952) studies from innovation diffusion waves. Space components such as distance and hierarchy of urban centers modulates the diffusion of disease and reveals the main paths from past and present pandemics. The aim of this study is to investigate the paths and diffusion types made by the COVID-19 in Brazil using spatial analysis. The period of study is from the first reported case in February 2020 to October 2021 (608 days). We’ve used the municipalities (n= 5568) and epidemiological weeks as spatial and temporal units. Data of confirmed cases and deaths by municipality was provided by Brasil.IO platform, an open access database. We’ve mapped in ArcGIS 10.8, with the date of the first reported cases and death by municipality, the total number of cases and deaths in the period and the hierarchy level of the municipality. The Hierarchy level is provided by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and uses the central place theory as the basis. The analysis of diffusion was made by the interpolation of municipalities' first case and deaths using Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW). As result we identified a very strong association between urban hierarchy and the diffusion of COVID-19 in Brazil, with marked regional differences especially in the Amazon - faster diffusion without hierarchy predominance.
Mots clés : Spatial Diffusion|Urban Hierarchy|Spatial Analysis|Brazil|COVID-19
A105544JL