SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly in the Brazilian Amazon. Mortality was elevated, despite the young population, with the health services and cemeteries overwhelmed. The attack rate in this region is an estimate of the final epidemic size in an unmitigated epidemic. Here we show that by June, one month after the epidemic peak in Manaus, capital of the Amazonas state, 44% of the population had detectable IgG antibodies. This equates to a cumulative incidence of 52% after correcting for the false-negative rate of the test. Further correcting for the effect of antibody waning we estimate that the final attack rate was 66%. This is higher than seen in other settings, but lower than the predicted final size for an unmitigated epidemic in a homogeneously mixed population. This discrepancy may be accounted for by population structure as well as some limited physical distancing and non-pharmaceutical measures adopted in the city.
Coronavirus prevalence in Brazilian Amazon and Sao Paulo city
Dataset published at Zenodo repository.