Perceiving and participating in cultural heritage : an ethnography about the process of preservation of Ouro Preto, Brazil

This thesis discusses the promises and pitfalls of city preservation in Ouro Preto, a Brazilian city preserved nationally and hailed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Using interviews, archival material, ethnographic observations, and the analysis of public meetings on city preservation in Ouro Preto in 2013, I study how the city’s legacy as a national treasure of monumental architecture has endured until now, despite different coexisting standards of living, perceptions and uses of the city, and views of the past. In Ouro Preto, while fluctuating populations of tourists and students live mainly in the historic city centre, permanent residents often build their homes in underprivileged and marginalised areas and benefit little from their cultural heritage. Spatial exclusion and preservation policies, allegedly favouring outsiders, boost the divide between residents and newcomers, echoing the colonial past of the city. Disputes around the preservation of the cityscape invited widespread participation. One expectation of increased grassroots participation in cultural heritage sites is that it could expose varied and fluid perspectives of the city, and consequently allow for corresponding, more inclusive uses. However, when looking at local participatory practices in heritage policies, I consider the challenge for grassroots meetings to include different citizens and viewpoints, when the ability to disagree in public debates and participation are restricted by socio-economic conditions. The ethnographic character of this research offers a platform to investigate anthropological questions regarding the role, limits and expectations around cultural heritage and participatory practices in a context of varied socio-economic levels and fluid perceptions of aesthetics, history, and everyday uses of public spaces in a fragmented city

Tracking the emergence of disparities in the subnational spread of COVID-19 in Brazil using an online application for real-time data visualisation: A longitudinal analysis.

BACKGROUND: Brazil is one of the countries worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic with over 20 million cases and 557,000 deaths reported by August 2021. Comparison of real-time local COVID-19 data between areas is essential for understanding transmission, measuring the effects of interventions, and predicting the course of the epidemic, but are often challenging due to different population sizes and structures. METHODS: We describe the development of a new app for the real-time visualisation of COVID-19 data in Brazil at the municipality level. In the CLIC-Brazil app, daily updates of case and death data are downloaded, age standardised and used to estimate the effective reproduction number (Rt ). We show how such platforms can perform real-time regression analyses to identify factors associated with the rate of initial spread and early reproduction number. We also use survival methods to predict the likelihood of occurrence of a new peak of COVID-19 incidence. FINDINGS: After an initial introduction in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states in early March 2020, the epidemic spread to northern states and then to highly populated coastal regions and the Central-West. Municipalities with higher metrics of social development experienced earlier arrival of COVID-19 (decrease of 11·1 days [95% CI:8.9,13.2] in the time to arrival for each 10% increase in the social development index). Differences in the initial epidemic intensity (mean Rt ) were largely driven by geographic location and the date of local onset. INTERPRETATION: This study demonstrates that platforms that monitor, standardise and analyse the epidemiological data at a local level can give useful real-time insights into outbreak dynamics that can be used to better adapt responses to the current and future pandemics. FUNDING: This project was supported by a Medical Research Council UK (MRC-UK) -São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) CADDE partnership award (MR/S0195/1 and FAPESP 18/14389-0)

SARS-CoV-2 non-pharmaceutical interventions in Brazilian municipalities

Brazil has one of the fastest-growing COVID-19 epidemics worldwide. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been adopted on a municipal level, with asynchronous actions taken across 5,568 municipalities and the Federal District. This paper addresses this complexity reporting on a novel dataset with survey responses from 4,027 mayors, 72.3% of the total municipalities in the country. This dataset responds to the urgency to track and share findings on fragmented policies to tackle health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Quantifying NPIs can allow for understanding the effectiveness of interventions in reducing transmission. We offer temporal details for a range of measures aimed at generating social distancing as well as when local governments started to relax those measures.,Information on local NPI policies related to COVID-19 were collected through a phone-based survey conducted directly with mayors, with an option to receive a protected password to respond to the questionnaire online at a later time or to update previous answers. We focused on information that has a direct impact on the mobility of residents; that was associated with a specific date of implementation; and that, as policies, are of public domain but were not yet tabled together. We collected information on policies adapting a classification system that included: (1) adoption of cordon sanitaire, (2) prohibition of agglomeration, (3) closure of all but essential services, and (4) compulsory use of face covers, (5) reduction in public transportation offer and if so, what was the percentage of the reduction, and (6) if there was already any easing of the above distancing measures. For all questions there was a side column asking when the action was adopted, and that field was populated in the format DD/MM/YYYY. In order to collect these data, we started a collaboration with the Brazilian Confederation of Municipalities (CNM). This cooperation was established through a meeting followed by a written agreement signed by the first and last authors of this paper with CNM on April 9, 2020. The authors were allowed to describe, deposit and analyse the dataset. The public availability of these data also extends to other scholars the right to analyse the data. CNM has a call centre and as the largest municipal association in Brazil, they possess the email and telephone number of all Brazilian elected mayors. The capillarity of that organisation makes it an ideal partner for such large-scale data collection. The partnership was established because of the need to understand the impact of decentralized measures in Brazil and what decentralisation causes to the spread of infectious diseases. Upon the establishment of this collaboration, CNM designed further questions to the questionnaire that are of interest to their monitoring of municipalities, such as budgetary information possibly affected by the pandemic. In total, the questionnaire had 47 questions; our database has 5 columns related to the identification of the municipality and 13 of the 47 questions that were part of our collaboration to document NPI policy strategies. The 13 questions that form this dataset (6 thematic questions with respective 6 dates of implementation and 1 question pertaining to percentage) were discussed through coordinated orientation.,Because not all municipal authorities answered to all questions, we suggest users to consider additional sources of information to document missing policy implementation using preferably official source of information such as local decrees. However, as decrees are not always available online, secondary sources such as media reports may need to be consulted. As the pandemic progresses and as Brazil is a highly affected country, we invite researchers to use the data to best understand the pandemic and support health policymakers in their efforts.,</span

Dataset on SARS-CoV-2 non-pharmaceutical interventions in Brazilian municipalities

Brazil has one of the fastest-growing COVID-19 epidemics worldwide. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been adopted at the municipal level with asynchronous actions taken across 5,568 municipalities and the Federal District. This paper systematises the fragmented information on NPIs reporting on a novel dataset with survey responses from 4,027 mayors, covering 72.3% of all municipalities in the country. This dataset responds to the urgency to track and share findings on fragmented policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Quantifying NPIs can help to assess the role of interventions in reducing transmission. We offer spatial and temporal details for a range of measures aimed at implementing social distancing and the dates when these measures were relaxed by local governments.</p

Higher risk of death from COVID-19 in low-income and non-White populations of São Paulo, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: Little evidence exists on the differential health effects of COVID-19 on disadvantaged population groups. Here we characterise the differential risk of hospitalisation and death in São Paulo state, Brazil, and show how vulnerability to COVID-19 is shaped by socioeconomic inequalities.METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study using hospitalised severe acute respiratory infections notified from March to August 2020 in the Sistema de Monitoramento Inteligente de São Paulo database. We examined the risk of hospitalisation and death by race and socioeconomic status using multiple data sets for individual-level and spatiotemporal analyses. We explained these inequalities according to differences in daily mobility from mobile phone data, teleworking behaviour and comorbidities. RESULTS: Throughout the study period, patients living in the 40% poorest areas were more likely to die when compared with patients living in the 5% wealthiest areas (OR: 1.60, 95% CI 1.48 to 1.74) and were more likely to be hospitalised between April and July 2020 (OR: 1.08, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.12). Black and Pardo individuals were more likely to be hospitalised when compared with White individuals (OR: 1.41, 95% CI 1.37 to 1.46; OR: 1.26, 95% CI 1.23 to 1.28, respectively), and were more likely to die (OR: 1.13, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.19; 1.07, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.10, respectively) between April and July 2020. Once hospitalised, patients treated in public hospitals were more likely to die than patients in private hospitals (OR: 1.40%, 95% CI 1.34% to 1.46%). Black individuals and those with low education attainment were more likely to have one or more comorbidities, respectively (OR: 1.29, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.39; 1.36, 95% CI 1.27 to 1.45). CONCLUSIONS: Low-income and Black and Pardo communities are more likely to die with COVID-19. This is associated with differential access to quality healthcare, ability to self-isolate and the higher prevalence of comorbidities. </p

Data from: Evolution and epidemic spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil

Brazil currently has one of the fastest growing SARS-CoV-2 epidemics in the world. Owing to limited available data, assessments of the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on virus spread remain challenging. Using a mobility-driven transmission model, we show that NPIs reduced the reproduction number from >3 to 1–1.6 in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Sequencing of 427 new genomes and analysis of a geographically representative genomic dataset identified >100 international virus introductions in Brazil. We estimate that most (76%) of the Brazilian strains fell in three clades that were introduced from Europe between 22 February11 March 2020. During the early epidemic phase, we found that SARS-CoV-2 spread mostly locally and within-state borders. After this period, despite sharp decreases in air travel, we estimated multiple exportations from large urban centers that coincided with a 25% increase in average travelled distances in national flights. This study sheds new light on the epidemic transmission and evolutionary trajectories of SARS-CoV-2 lineages in Brazil, and provide evidence that current interventions remain insufficient to keep virus transmission under control in the country

Evolution and epidemic spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil

Detailed metadata on all 1,182 sequences used in this study. File contains information on epidemiology, demography, location, diagnostics, sequencing statistics and evolution of 427 SARS-CoV-2 sequences generated in this study and 755 sequences downloaded from GISAID