Key info
Date:
06 October 2021
Authors:
Andrea Brizzi, Charles Whittaker, Luciana M. S. Servo, Iwona Hawryluk, Carlos A. Prete Jr, William M. de Souza, Renato S. Aguiar, Leonardo J. T. Araujo, Leonardo S. Bastos, Alexandra Blenkinsop, Lewis F. Buss, Darlan Candido, Marcia C. Castro, Silvia F. Costa, Julio Croda, Andreza de Souza Santos, Christopher Dye, Seth Flaxman, Paula L. C. Fonseca, Victor E. V. Geddes, Bernardo Gutierrez, Philippe Lemey, Anna S. Levin, JT McCrone , Thomas Mellan, Diego M. Bonfim, Xenia Miscouridou, Swapnil Mishra, Mélodie Monod, Filipe R. R. Moreira, Bruce Nelson, Rafael H. M. Pereira, Otavio Ranzani, Ricardo P. Schnekenberg, Elizaveta Semenova, Raphael Sonnabend, Renan P. Souza, Xiaoyue Xi, Ester C. Sabino, Nuno R. Faria, Samir Bhatt, Oliver Ratmann1.
1Correspondence:
Dr Oliver Ratmann
oliver.ratmann05@imperial.ac.uk
Prof Samir Bhatt
s.bhatt@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Nuno Faria
n.faria@imperial.ac.uk
Prof Ester Sabino
sabinoec@usp.br
WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute, and Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, in collaboration with the Institute for Applied Economic Research Brazil, Universidade de São Paulo Brazil, University of Texas Medical Branch USA, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Brazil, Laboratory of Quantitative Pathology Brazil, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz Brazil, University of Oxford United Kingdom, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health United States, Yale School of Public Health United States, University of Leuven Belgium, University of Edinburgh United Kingdom, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Brazil, National Institute for Amazon Research Brazil, Barcelona Institute for Global Health Spain
Now published in Nature; 10-04-2022, doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01807-1
Summary
The SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant spread rapidly across Brazil, causing substantial infection and death waves. We use individual-level patient records following hospitalisation with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 to document the extensive shocks in hospital fatality rates that followed Gamma’s spread across 14 state capitals, and in which more than half of hospitalised patients died over sustained time periods. We show that extensive fluctuations in COVID-19 in-hospital fatality rates also existed prior to Gamma’s detection, and were largely transient after Gamma’s detection, subsiding with hospital demand. Using a Bayesian fatality rate model, we find that the geographic and temporal fluctuations in Brazil’s COVID-19 in-hospital fatality rates are primarily associated with geographic inequities and shortages in healthcare capacity. We project that approximately half of Brazil’s COVID-19 deaths in hospitals could have been avoided without pre-pandemic geographic inequities and without pandemic healthcare pressure. Our results suggest that investments in healthcare resources, healthcare optimization, and pandemic preparedness are critical to minimize population wide mortality and morbidity caused by highly transmissible and deadly pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Translations
- Português - Portuguese
- 中文 - Mandarin
- 日本語 - Japanese
- Español - Spanish
- Français - French
- Italiano - Italian
- Arabic - العربية
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