Potential dissemination of epidemics based on Brazilian mobile geolocation data. Part I: Population dynamics and future spreading of infection in the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the pandemic of COVID-19.

Pedro S. Peixoto; Diego R. Marcondes; Cláudia M Peixoto; Lucas Queiroz; Rafael Gouveia; Afonso Delgado; Sérgio M Oliva

Another strategic information governments need to have is about the efficacy of the interventions enforced to slow the disease spread. Initial reports have shown the efficacy of these interventions, but we still lack reliable data, specially in Brazil, and, even when the data is available, we need to sort out misleading information [3] . Among the several challenges to address this pandemic, detecting the spatial spread of the disease within a region is one of the top priorities. An early warning can give time for government authorities to prepare the health system in a location to endure the increase on the number of people in need of medical care. One way to overcome this challenge is to monitor human mobility in order to detect patterns from which to predict future focus of infection, to either asses the efficacy of implemented policies to avoid transmission, or drive policies with the goal of avoiding the transmission to certain locations. This monitoring, specially using mobile phone data, has been noted to be an efficient way to follow public mobility. In recent work, [3] has indicated the efficacy of the intervention in China, correlating mobile data with reported cases. In other report, mobile data has evidenced the effect of Government-enforced measures in São Paulo, Brazil, in reducing social contact [5] . It is worth noting that, for large scale movements, other measures beyond mobile phone data have been successfully used to foresee the spread of the disease in Brazil [4] .