Crime and COVID-19 in Rio de Janeiro: How does organized crime shape the disease evolution?

TL;DR

This study models how organized crime influences COVID-19 spread in Rio de Janeiro's distinct regions, revealing that control by gangs and paramilitary groups affects disease evolution differently from government-controlled areas.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled SIRD-like epidemic model accounting for organized crime control, providing qualitative insights into regional COVID-19 dynamics in Rio de Janeiro.

Findings

Model reproduces distinct COVID-19 evolution in different regions

Organized crime control impacts disease spread patterns

Model applicable to other metropolitan regions with exposure groups

Abstract

The city of Rio de Janeiro is one of the biggest cities in Brazil. Drug gangs and paramilitary groups called \textit{mil\'icias} control some regions of the city where the government is not present, specially in the slums. Due to the characteristics of such two distinct groups, it was observed that the evolution of COVID-19 is different in those two regions, in comparison with the regions controlled by the government. In order to understand qualitatively those observations, we divided the city in three regions controlled by the government, by the drug gangs and by the \textit{mil\'icias}, respectively, and we consider a SIRD-like epidemic model where the three regions are coupled. Considering different levels of exposure, the model is capable to reproduce qualitatively the distinct evolution of the COVID-19 disease in the three regions, suggesting that the organized crime shapes the COVID-19 evolution in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This case study suggests that the model can be used in general for any metropolitan region with groups of people that can be categorized by their level of exposure.