Rio de Janeiro is Second-Worst State in Fighting Covid-19, per CLP Ranking

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Federal District (DF) took the lead in the ranking of states with the worst performance in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil. The latest edition of the list, prepared by the Center for Public Leadership (CLP) and obtained exclusively by Broadcast news outlet, placed the DF in first place in the week ended on July 28th.

This is the first time that the DF ranks first since the start of monitoring, in the week beginning April 15th. It is followed by Rio de Janeiro, which climbed from the 16th position to second between July 14th and 28th. Next come Roraima in third place, Goiás in fourth place, and Alagoas in fifth.

The Covid-19 State Ranking assesses the 27 federation governmentl units according to nine criteria: proportion of confirmed cases; logarithmic evolution of cases and the combined Covid-19 and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndromes (SARS) mortality rate; the transparency of the fight against the coronavirus prepared by Open Knowledge Brasil; and Google’s social isolation data. The higher the final score, the worse the performance of the states in tackling the pandemic.

Despite topping the ranking for the first time, the Federal District consistently occupied second place since the first week of July. The change in position was driven mainly by Roraima’s improved situation rather than by a worsening of its own: the DF’s score dropped from 46.96 points in the week ending on July 14th to 43.75 points in the period ending on July 28th. The Northern state, which has taken the lead for the past five weeks, has dropped from 50.4 to 42.36 points in the period.

“The DF has the worst performance, it has broken death records and passed 100,000 cases. We’ve been warning about this over the past few months and now it’s chaos, in general terms,” says José Henrique Nascimento, Head of Competitiveness at CLP. “They need and can do something to control the disease, because it is a small state and has some of the best indicators in Brazil, particularly in terms of employment and income,” he adds.

Among the negative features, he also mentions Rio de Janeiro, ranked second in the survey. “Fiocruz has already released a technical note referring to a possible new wave of cases. Rio is now in second place and has a chance to remain in this negative position,” he notes.

The Trend

The CLP notes that at the turn of the week ending on July 14th to July 28th, the number of deaths by covid-19 in Brazil rose 28.0 percent. In the South region, Santa Catarina and Paraná recorded an increase of approximately 60 percent, and in the Midwest, Mato Grosso do Sul recorded the highest growth, 64 percent.

“The southern states are less worrying as they seem to have realized the problem and are taking action. But I would say that we have to be alert to Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás, which are releasing several reports of hospitals with 100 percent of their capacity reached,” Nascimento says.

According to CLP projections, the number of deaths by covid-19 in Brazil – from 88,539 until last Tuesday, July 28th, when the ranking was closed – should grow 15 percent over the next 15 days, to 101,887. In the one-month period until August 27th, the center expects to see an increase of 29.9 percent in the total, to 115,000.

In the Federal District, the worst placed in the ranking, the CLP estimates an increase of 43.9 percent in the number of deaths by August 12th to 2,002, from 1,391 recorded by July 28th. By August 27th, the number is estimated to have increased by 77.5 percent to 2,469. The most intense increase is expected for Goiás, which had 1,473 deaths by July 28th and could increase by 43.18 percent in 15 days (to 2,109) and 86.35 percent to 2,745 in one month.

According to Nascimento, the ranking results so far show that the performance of the States is strongly linked to the maintenance of social distancing policies. The issue is mainly driven by an inability to ensure compliance with security protocols when measures are relaxed, he says.

“No state has been able to reopen without creating short-term negative impacts. People think that life is normal and the curve of cases and deaths rises, hospitals crowd,” says Nascimento. “There is an institutional inability to provide security. You reopen and buses will fill up, they have always filled up, it won’t stop now.”

What do the states say

In a statement, the government of Rio de Janeiro said that a crisis cabinet is monitoring the development of Covid-19 in the state on a daily basis to support measures. The Rio de Janeiro executive said that, according to its risk panel, the coastal lowlands and the northwest of the state are at low risk and the rest of the state at moderate risk. The note further states that the measures implemented by the government since March have already saved some 100,000 lives.