Resumen de Counter Intituive COVID-19 Propagation Dynamics in Brazil

Manuel Graña Romay , Goizalde Badiola Zabala, José Manuel López Guede

• There are few studies concerning the propagation of COVID-19 pandemic, besides theoretical models that have produced alarming predictions. These models assume wave-like propagation dynamics on an uniform medium. However, it appears that COVID-19 follows unexpected propagation dynamics. In this paper we consider the state-wise data on COVID-19 mortality in Brazil provided by government sources. Conventional propagation models tell us that the pandemic should propagate over the neighboring states from the initial cases in Sao Paulo. We compute several measures of correlation and prediction by random forests finding that the patterns of propagation do not correlate well with the graph distances defined by the spatial neighborhood of the states. We think that this phenomenon deserves further attention in order to understand COVID-19 pandemic.