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Given unreported cases of covid-19, the total number of people infected with coronavirus in Brazil, as of yesterday, could have been 1,657,752, according to a study published by the Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine of USP (University of São Paulo).
The number predicts a variation of cases more or less, considering 1,345,034 cases in the best scenario and 2,021,177 in the worst scenario. The figures go far beyond the 114,715 official cases published today by the Ministry of Health.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Domingos Alves, one of the researchers involved in the study, said the numbers point to Brazil as “the global epicenter of the coronavirus.” Currently, the United States is considered the global epicenter, with 1,171,510 confirmed official cases as of this afternoon, according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States).
The Brazilian estimate is based on the fatality rate of covid-19 in South Korea, a country that is testing the population en masse, unlike Brazil, which has been applying tests only in severe cases.
Using the South Korean index as the base, the study adapted the case fatality rate and redistributed it among the Brazilian age groups, reaching 1.11% of the expected rate.
“The adjusted case fatality rate represents a more realistic case fatality rate by adjusting the rate calculation for the average time between case confirmation and death, 10 days,” says an excerpt from the survey.
The analysis can be verified in its entirety through this link. The study methodology can be consulted here.
