Abstract:
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 first occurrence of the virus coming from abroad. Methodology. We developed a SIR (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 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 airport 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 cities. The more an airport 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.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Funding StatementFunding by CNPqAuthor DeclarationsAll relevant ethical guidelines have been followed; any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained and details of the IRB/oversight body are included in the manuscript.YesAll necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.YesI understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.YesI state all data will be available in submission material
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