Evolution of COVID-19 in Londrina (State of Paraná – Brazil) between March and August of 2020

Abstract

The pandemic situation of COVID-19 has provided strong impacts that can be observed everywhere, especially in underdeveloped countries. The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of COVID-19 pandemic in the city of Londrina (second biggest city of State of Paraná – Brazil) between March 9 and August 10 of 2020. For that, spatio-temporal descriptive and statistical analysis were performed to identify its evolution in the city. The first cases of COVID-19 in Londrina were registered in March (considering the symptoms onset day) and were located in central and southern regions of the city, both with high vertical residential density and higher average incomes. Soon, COVID-19 exponentially increased in a short period of time with a reproduction number, R0 =1.45. However, some measures adopted by the city Hall and Paraná State Government slowed down the evolution of cases in Londrina, like the suspension of non-essential activities and classes in the very beginning of the pandemic, and also the expansion of intensive therapy units (ITU) in existing hospitals, which avoided a collapse in the healthy system of the city. Such findings can be helpful to avoid a second wave of COVID-19 cases, and ways to deal with future pandemics.