Contribution of international air transport at the entrance of COVID-19 in Brazil

Abstract

COVID-19 is currently considered one of the greatest threats to health, safety, and the economy worldwide. An intense movement of international passengers may be critical for either the contingency or the spread of disease in a pandemic situation. Various research on international and national epidemics and their evolution have already been addressed in the medical literature. However, there are few studies to measure the influence of air transport on the proliferation of COVID-19 in Brazil yet. Thus, this article aims to verify if the movement of international air passengers influenced the COVID-19 spreading in Brazil. Therefore, air traffic and its concentration were analyzed, trying to identify its main entrances and volume of passengers. Afer that, statistical regression methods were used to estimate how passengers coming from countries contaminated by COVID-19 influenced the spread of the disease in Brazil. As a main result, it was found that foreign passengers disembarked in Brazil are directly related to the cases of COVID-19 in the country, making air transport a gateway to the virus in Brazil.