Retrospective Cohort Study of COVID-19 in Patients of the Brazilian Public Health System with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant Infection.

Several vaccines against COVID-19 are now available, based on different techniques and made by different laboratories spread around the world. With the roll out of the vaccination process in an advanced stage in many countries, the reduced risk of hospitalization due to the Omicron variant relative to the Delta variant infection, despite the higher transmission risk of Omicron, may lead to a misinterpretation of the results, as infection by Omicron is associated with a significant reduction in severe outcomes and shorter hospitalization time than the Delta variant. We compared the in-hospital mortality due to the Omicron (Jan-Mar 2022) with Gamma (Jan 2021) and Delta (Oct-Dec 2021) variants of patients in the Brazilian public health system. This study also discusses the decrease in booster vaccine effectiveness in patients hospitalized due to the Omicron variant compared with the Delta variant. Without a remodeling of vaccines for new variants, booster doses may be necessary with a shorter time interval.

Induction of a Consumption Pattern for Ethanol and Gasoline in Brazil

Historically, carbon dioxide emissions from transport have been a globally discussed and analyzed problem. The adoption of flex fuel vehicles designed to run ethanol–gasoline blends is important to mitigate these emissions. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the ethanol–gasoline price ratio on different vehicle models, and discuss the opportunities to increase ethanol consumption from this perspective. Our analysis shows that the use of a unique fuel economy ratio for all flex–fuel vehicles in the country significantly reduces the opportunity of some customers to purchase hydrous ethanol. The paper also discusses possible actions to provide adequate information that may increase the possibility of fuelling vehicles with a high-level ethanol blend.

Synchronized spread of COVID-19 in the cities of Bahia, Brazil.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 virus, has overloaded health systems in many contexts Conant and Wolfe (2008). Brazil has experienced more than 345,000 deaths, as of April/2021 Conant and Wolfe (2008), with dire consequences for the country's public and private health systems. This paper aims to estimate the synchronization graph between the cities' contagion waves from public COVID-19 data records. For this purpose, the Motif-Synchronization method Magwire et al. (2011) was applied to publicly available COVID-19 data records to determine the sequential relationship of occurrence of the waves among Bahia's cities. We find synchronization between waves of infection between cities, suggesting diffusion of the disease in Bahia and a potential role for inter-city transportation Saba et al. (2018), Saba et al. (2014), Araújo et al. (2018) in the dynamics of this phenomenon McKee and Stuckler (2020), Chinazzi et al. (2020), Tizzoni et al. (2014). Our main contribution lies in the use of the Motif-Synchronization method applied to COVID-19 data records, with the results revealing a pattern of disease spread that extends beyond city boundaries.

A Critical Analysis of the COVID-19 Hospitalization Network in Countries with Limited Resources.

To effectively combat the COVID-19 pandemic, countries with limited resources could only allocate intensive and non-intensive care units to a low number of regions. In this work, we evaluated the actual displacement of infected patients in search of care, aiming to understand how the networks of planned and actual hospitalizations take place. To assess the flow of hospitalizations outside the place of residence, we used the concepts of complex networks. Our findings indicate that the current distribution of health facilities in Bahia, Brazil, is not sufficient to effectively reduce the distances traveled by patients with COVID-19 who require hospitalization. We believe that unnecessary trips to distant hospitals can put both the sick and the healthy involved in the transport process at risk, further delaying the stabilization of the COVID-19 pandemic in each region of the state of Bahia. From the results found, we concluded that, to mitigate this situation, the implementation of health units in countries with limited resources should be based on scientific methods, and international collaborations should be established.

Optimization of COVID-19 vaccination and the role of individuals with a high number of contacts: A model based approach.

We report strong evidence of the importance of contact hubs (or superspreaders) in mitigating the current COVID-19 pandemic. Contact hubs have a much larger number of contacts than the average in the population, and play a key role on the effectiveness of vaccination strategies. By using an age-structures compartmental SEIAHRV (Susceptible, Exposed, Infected symptomatic, Asymptomatic, Hospitalized, Recovered, Vaccinated) model, calibrated from available demographic and COVID-19 incidence, and considering separately those individuals with a much greater number of contacts than the average in the population, we show that carefully choosing who will compose the first group to be vaccinated can impact positively the total death toll and the demand for health services. This is even more relevant in countries with a lack of basic resources for proper vaccination and a significant reduction in social isolation. In order to demonstrate our approach we show the effect of hypothetical vaccination scenarios in two countries of very different scales and mitigation policies, Brazil and Portugal.

Supply chain resilience and industry 4.0: a evaluation of the Brazilian northeast automotive OEM scenario post COVID-19

COVID-19 outbreak has heavily impacted the manufacturing industry, including Brazilian Automotive Industry. The effects of COVID-19 created restrictions in several industry processes as supply chain. On the other hand, several industry 4.0 technologies is able to support the industry supply chain activities in the COVID 19 scenarios, as well it may contributed for the automotive industry recovery and it will define the next steps of this industry. A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer. Industry 4.0 is related to the technology development and the digitalization process that improve significantly productivity. Considering the automotive process, an important reference model is described in Advanced Product Quality Planning and Control Plan, that is a manual that communicate the guidelines of the product quality planning and control plan for internal and external suppliers. In this scenario, this paper evaluated the current situation and the future outlook for the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in the automotive OEM post-pandemic scenario on the point of view of automotive specialists. The results of this research provide an overview of the current situation and the future outlook for the usage of Industry 4.0 technologies by the Brazilian Northeast automotive OEM, from the perspective of manufacturing engineering experts on APQP.