The necessary cooperation between governments and public in the fight against COVID-19: why non-pharmaceutical interventions may be ineffective

Borges, Christielly Mendonca; Coelho, Marco Tulio Pacheco; Diniz-Filho, Jose Alexandre Felizola; Rangel, Thiago Fernando

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is the biggest public health challenge in the last 100 years. No successful pharmaceutical treatment is yet available, thus effective public health interventions to contain COVID-19 include social distancing, isolation and quarantine measures. However the efficiency of these containment measures varied among countries and even within states in the same country. Despite Brazil being deeply affected by coronavirus, the federal government never proposed a coordinated action to control COVID-19 and Brazilian states, which are autonomous, each imposed different containment measures. The state of Goias declared strict social distancing measures in March 13, but gradually relaxed many of its first measures due specially to public pressure. Here we use a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model combined with Bayesian inference and a time-dependent spreading rate to assess how past state-level interventions affected the spread of COVID-19 in Goias. The interventions succeeded in decreasing the transmission rate in the state, however, after the third intervention the rate remained positive and exponential. Thus, other stricter interventions were made necessary to avoid the growth of new cases and a collapse in the health system. Governmental interventions need to be taken seriously by the population in order for them have the proposed outcome. Our results reflect the population's disregard with the measures imposed and the need for cooperation between governments and its citizens in the fight against COVID-19.