Between February 25 and May 31, each Covid-19 recipient spread the virus to three other people in Brazil, on average. The data comes from a joint study from the University of São Paulo (USP), University of Oxford and Imperial College London.
A rate of spread (R0) around 3 puts Brazil ahead of countries like Italy, Spain, France and the UK, whose rate of spread averaged around 2.5 to 2.6 during the worst months of the pandemic. To be considered under control, the Covid-19 pandemic has to present an R0 below 1, which means that to every new individual with the coronavirus less than one person is expected to be infected.
The research was published in the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Nature Human Behavior – one of the most important in the world.
It seems that Brazil still has a long way to go before declaring the Covid-19 pandemic under control. According to the Imperial College London, the country’s rate of spread is growing once again North of 1, which means that the pandemic is still accelerating in Brazil. Today’s daily newsletter explains how Brazil never quite controlled the Covid-19 pandemic from the outset.
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