Brazil has been severely hit by COVID-19, with rapid spatial spread of both cases and deaths. We used daily data on reported cases and deaths to understand, measure, and compare the spatiotemporal pattern of the spread across municipalities. Indicators of clustering, trajectories, speed, and intensity of the movement of COVID-19 to interior areas, combined with indices of policy measures, show that although no single narrative explains the diversity in the spread, an overall failure of implementing prompt, coordinated, and equitable responses in a context of stark local inequalities fueled disease spread. This resulted in high and unequal infection and mortality burdens. With a current surge in cases and deaths and several variants of concern in circulation, failure to mitigate the spread could further aggravate the burden.

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Spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 spread in Brazil.

This paper attempts to investigate the effects of Coronavirus spread on stock markets using panel data analysis, on daily basis over the period from March 1, 2020 until September 30, 2020. Coronavirus spread has been measured by daily cases and daily deaths per million of population, while stock return is measured by Δ in sectoral indices. This has been conducted after dividing the research period into 6 months from March to September and has been applied on 17 sectors in the Egyptian Exchange. 

Using panel data analysis, results indicate significant negative industry effects for each of banking sector (BANK), Food, Beverages and Tobacco sector (FOBT) and Health Care & Pharmaceuticals sector (HLTH). Besides, findings show significant positive industry effects for each of Contracting & Construction Engineering sector (COCE), Energy & Support Services sector (ENGY), IT, Media & Communication Services sector (IMCS), Shipping & Transportation Services sector (SHTS) and Trade & Distributors sector (TRDB). 

The robustness check supports the significant negative industry effects for each of Food, Beverages and Tobacco (FOBT) and Health Care & Pharmaceuticals (HLTH) (as losers) and the significant positive industry effects for each of Energy & Support Services (ENGY), Shipping & Transportation Services (SHTS) and Trade & Distributors (TRDB) (as winners).

The Effects of COVID-19 Spread on the Egyptian Exchange Sectors: Winners and Losers across Time (preprint)

Clinical characteristics and risk factors for death among hospitalised children and adolescents with COVID-19 in Brazil: an analysis of a nationwide database.

The objective of this review was to identify the most significant studies reporting on COVID-19 during pregnancy and to provide an overview of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnant women and perinatal outcomes. Eligibility criteria included all reports, reviews; case series with more than 100 individuals and that reported at least three of the following: maternal characteristics, maternal COVID-19 clinical presentation, pregnancy outcomes, maternal outcomes and/or neonatal/perinatal outcomes. We included eight studies that met the inclusion criteria, representing 10,966 cases distributed in 15 countries around the world until July 20, 2020. The results of our review demonstrate that the maternal characteristics, clinical symptoms, maternal and neonatal outcomes almost 11,000 cases of COVID-19 and pregnancy described in 15 different countries are not worse or different from the general population. We suggest that pregnant women are not more affected by the respiratory complications of COVID-19, when compared to the outcomes described in the general population. We also suggest that the important gestational shift Th1-Th2 immune response, known as a potential contributor to the severity in cases of viral infections during pregnancy, are counter-regulated by the enhanced-pregnancy-induced ACE2-Ang-(1-7) axis. Moreover, the relatively small number of reported cases during pregnancy does not allow us to affirm that COVID-19 is more aggressive during pregnancy. Conversely, we also suggest, that down-regulation of ACE2 receptors induced by SARS-CoV-2 cell entry might have been detrimental in subjects with pre-existing ACE2 deficiency associated with pregnancy. This association might explain the worse perinatal outcomes described in the literature.

COVID-19 during pregnancy: an overview of maternal characteristics, clinical symptoms, maternal and neonatal outcomes of 10,996 cases described in 15 countries.

Estimating the early impact of vaccination against COVID-19 on deaths among elderly people in Brazil: Analyses of routinely-collected data on vaccine coverage and mortality.

Spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 and government response in South Korea (as of May 31, 2020).

Brazil has been heavily affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this study, we used data on reported total deaths in 2020 and in January–April 2021 to measure and compare the death toll across states. We estimate a decline in 2020 life expectancy at birth (e0) of 1.3 years, a mortality level not seen since 2014. The reduction in life expectancy at age 65 (e65) in 2020 was 0.9 years, setting Brazil back to 2012 levels. The decline was larger for males, widening by 9.1% the female–male gap in e0. Among states, Amazonas lost 60.4% of the improvements in e0 since 2000. In the first 4 months of 2021, COVID-19 deaths represented 107% of the total 2020 figures. Assuming that death rates would have been equal to 2019 all-cause rates in the absence of COVID-19, COVID-19 deaths in 2021 have already reduced e0 in 2021 by 1.8 years, which is slightly larger than the reduction estimated for 2020 under similar assumptions. New estimates of life expectancy at birth and at age 65 years in Brazil reveal substantial declines as a result of COVID-19, bringing mortality back to levels observed 20 or more years ago.

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Reduction in life expectancy in Brazil after COVID-19.

abstract:In this article, I seek to understand the longevity of Korean slavery, the social and economic foundation of Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910). The tension of the competing economic needs of the state and yangban elites versus the state’s ideological commitment to benevolent governance led the state to formulate pliable policies on slavery. Legal cases concerning slaves’ oppression by slave owners reveal that owners exercised tyrannical power over their slaves. Yet laws also restrained slave owners in their dealings with slaves. Slaves, though subject to constant exploitation and unjust social conditions, took advantage of their economic, social, and familial resources as well as their legal rights in managing their precarious lives. This structural malleability enabling slaves’ agency created a form of slavery in Korea that endured for centuries.초록:이 논문은 조선왕조의 사회 경제적 근간을 이룬 노비제도가 장기지속된 원인을 노비들이 자신들이 갖고 있는 사회 경제적 자원과 법적 수단들을 이용 하여 자신들의 삶을 주체적으로 영위해 나갈 수 있게 한 구조적 유연성에서 찾 는다.

Resilience of Korean Slavery: Tyrannical Owners, Resourceful Slaves, and the Equivocal State

Genealogical records in Chosŏn Korea took diverse forms across the centuries, each of them providing a window onto an elite ethos that included innovative ideas about kinship and society. The earliest surviving genealogical records show bilaterality, recording both female and male lines in equal detail, and sometimes also included extended records on maternal ancestors’ families. A typical patrilineal genealogy in the shape of a pyramid, in which the daughter’s descendants were largely suppressed, began to emerge from around the late seventeenth century. A genealogical diagram in the shape of an inverted pyramid, by contrast, traces bilateral ancestors equally from the focal person, usually the compiler. This diagrammatic intervention, which had several variations, reveals both familial anxiety over socio-cultural changes brought on by the patrilineal turn, and the persistence of the pre-Confucian social order in which both maternal and paternal ancestries were important. It also rescued ego by foregrounding the focal person who would have been one of thousands of collaterals in a pyramid shape genealogy, and enabled elites to embrace a starkly different understanding of their roots and the relatedness of people to their contemporaries. 

Sun Kim

Papers

Spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 spread in Brazil.

Spatiotemporal pattern of COVID-19 and government response in South Korea (as of May 31, 2020).

Reduction in life expectancy in Brazil after COVID-19.

Resilience of Korean Slavery: Tyrannical Owners, Resourceful Slaves, and the Equivocal State

Diversity and Innovation in the Genealogical Records of Chosŏn Korea