Comparing the dynamics of COVID-19 infection and mortality in the United States, India, and Brazil

TL;DR

This study analyzes COVID-19 spread and mortality patterns across US, India, and Brazil, revealing distinct state-level behaviors and wave dynamics in each country.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of COVID-19 trajectories and wave patterns at the state level across three major countries, highlighting structural similarities and differences.

Findings

US and Indian states show distinct behavior patterns.

Brazilian states exhibit less structured wave behavior.

Time offsets between cases and deaths vary across waves.

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the spread and impact of COVID-19 in the three countries most heavily impacted by the pandemic: the United States (US), India and Brazil. All three of these countries have a federal structure, in which the individual states have largely determined the response to the pandemic. Thus, we perform an extensive analysis of the individual states of these three countries to determine patterns of similarity within each. First, we analyse structural similarity and anomalies in the trajectories of cases and deaths as multivariate time series. Next, we study the lengths of the different waves of the virus outbreaks across the three countries and their states. Finally, we investigate suitable time offsets between cases and deaths as a function of the distinct outbreak waves. In all these analyses, we consistently reveal more characteristically distinct behaviour between US and Indian states, while Brazilian states exhibit less structure in their wave behaviour and changing progression between cases and deaths.