Covid-19 and Brazil: A Data Exploration
By: Fernando Barbalho
Tags: Rstats, Open Data, Covid 19, Dataviz, Brazil

Covid-19 and Brazil: A Data Exploration

Last friday, 02/26/2021, marked one year since the first recorded case of COVID-19 in Brazil. In this period the accumulated statistics of cases and deaths are frightening. The country is second in the total number of deaths from the disease according to the WHO, and third in the total number of cases. The numbers when viewed more closely can be even more terrifying.

When looking at the Brazilian municipalities we realize that in several of them the number of deaths from COVID-19 is already approaching the total number of deaths in the average of what was observed in these places between 2014 and 2018. The tragedy, however, did not occur overnight. There were many clues that it would get to where we are today. The trajectory that shook thousands of families in the more than 5000 Brazilian municipalities was built in evolutionary steps. It is this story of pain and loss that I will tell in more detail in the following paragraphs based on a comparison of the COVID’s death toll with the most recent average of total deaths in Brazilian municipalities.

The evolution of deaths in Brazil in five years

Data on deaths in Brazil take two years to be properly ascertained and released in an open format. The latest available data is from 2018. The Figure below shows the evolution of the total number of deaths from all causes in the country between 2014 and 2018.

Evolution of number of dead 2014–2018. Image by Author

It can be seen in the graph that the numbers are always above 1 million deaths and the last three years is one of stability after a small increase over the previous two years. On the date that marked the first year of the first case of COVID-19 Brazil counted 249,691 deaths from the disease. This is shown in the graph by the horizontal line that cuts across the vertical bars.

The data surveyed show that the average of the values shown in the graph is approximately 1.282 million deaths. When we compare the number of deaths by COVID accumulated on 02/26/2021 with this statistic, we conclude that the disease corresponds to 19.5% of the deaths observed in the average of all deaths calculated in the last five years of available data. This rate varies greatly among the municipalities. In the rest of this text, when reading the percentage of deaths in the municipalities, this number should be understood as a comparison of the deaths in each of these locations with their respective averages of total deaths counted between 2014 and 2018.

Distribution of the percentage of deaths by COVID-19 in Brazilian municipalities

The graph below shows how the percentage of deaths by COVID-19 is distributed in all Brazilian municipalities in relation to the average we are focusing on in this text.

Percentage of dead. Image by Author

The image shows that the great majority of the municipalities have values lower than 25%, but it is easy to see that there are values that exceed 50%, and that in some municipalities the COVID corresponds to more than 75% of the average, and in one specific municipality this value already reaches 99%. That’s right, a Brazilian municipality on 02/26/2021 recorded in the total number of deaths by COVID almost the same value as the total number of deaths from all possible causes over a five-year average.

Taking the percentage of deaths by COVID as a reference, we can see that throughout Brazil hundreds of municipalities have already exceeded this mark of 19.5% of the average total of deaths. The graph below shows how these municipalities are distributed throughout the Brazilian states.

Ranking of stats by number of cities with percentage of deads greater than the whole country. Image by Author

São Paulo (SP), which has the second largest number of municipalities, stands out in the graph. However, what you see next is not what one might expect. States like Mato Grosso (MT), Amazonas (AM), Pará (PA) and Tocantins (TO) have few municipalities. We will see later that these states also appear prominently in the lists of the ten municipalities with percentages of deaths higher than the reference of 19.5% of the average number of deaths.

The evolution of the tragedy in maps and graphs

In the following paragraphs I show how the Brazilian municipalities are distributed in relation to the percentage of deaths by COVID on four specific dates. The idea is to show that there has been a consistent evolution of the numbers toward the picture we see today. I chose three dates associated with peak moments in the first and second wave of the spread of the disease. The fourth date is 02/26/2021. See the chart below.

Time series of number of daily deads by COVID. Image by Author

The analyses are done from maps of Brazil. Here we paint the map in such a way that the cooler colors, with shades close to blue, refer to values of percentages of deaths in municipalities lower than the national rate of 19.5%. The lower this number, the cooler the color. The warmer colors, with tones close to red, signal municipalities with percentages higher than the reference. The higher this number, the warmer the color.

To get an initial idea, see below how the map looked on 03/17/2020, which corresponds to the first date with registered deaths in the database that we used as reference for this text.

Baseline map on 03/17/2020. Image by Author

As expected, the whole of Brazil is painted blue, after all, the pandemic was just beginning.

It didn’t take three months for the picture to start changing and we can already see municipalities with percentages of deaths by COVID that exceed 30% of the average. See the map for 06/04/2020.

Map on 06/04/2020. Image by Author

It can be seen in the figure that at the beginning of June the first chapters of what would happen in the municipalities of Amazonas and Pará, especially, are already beginning to be written, and the colors that represent them on the map are already starting to take on warm tones.

The figure below shows the ten municipalities with the highest rate of deaths by COVID in relation to the average total number of deaths.

Ranking of cities by (%) of dead on 06/04/2020. Image by Author

As we can see above, of the ten municipalities, seven are located in Amazonas (AM) and three in Pará (PA). On this day Tonantins was the only municipality in Brazil with a rate of deaths by COVID higher than 30% compared to its own average total deaths between 2014 and 2018.