Regional particularities of the diffusion and care of patients with COVID-19 in the urban network of the city of Imperatriz, Maranhao, Brasil

ABSTRACT

This article has as main goal to discuss the Covid-19 spread due to the mobility of the patients over the urban network in the city of Imperatriz, in Maranhao State. The analyzed time frame refers to the first 100 days of the pandemic, emphasizing the urban network of the Imperatriz city space. The examined data of the ICU, hospital beds and respirators in the State, also the data about the viral evolution in this period. The main data source are the Datasus and the Maranhao State health offil ce. The studied characteristics suggest that the medical-hospital equipment concentration in few cities of the State, especially in Imperatiz, is an expressive bottleneck when fighting the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic, due to the necessity of mobilization of people from the smaller centers with less health services to the ones with more hospital beds, resulting in more spread areas. Therefore, the spread of the disease happens in a graduated way in the urban network of the city, and this data is not always evident in the epidemiologic reports.