Vacinação, testes, infecção e morte: o controle da Covid-19 e sua associação ao crescimento do PIB em termos mundiais

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new coronavirus pandemic on March 11, 2020, and on May 5, 2023, announced the end of the public health emergency, although it recommended the continued strengthening of health surveillance. As of April 14, 2024, a total of 775 million cases and 7.05 million deaths had been reported globally, highlighting the challenges faced by countries in controlling the pandemic. In this context, the present study aims to analyze the association between the control of Covid-19 and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth. This choice is justified by the gap pointed out by Salyer (2020), who emphasizes the need to balance the control of Covid-19 transmission with economy considerations. For the development of the research, a cross-sectional observational analysis was employed, using official Covid-19 epidemiological data covering the period from December 31, 2019 to August 10, 2021, and the GDP growth in 2020. Descriptive analyzes were performed, applying statistical methods, association analysis, natural experiments and case study focused on Brazil, which presented the largest decline in infectious diseases control capacity (23% from 2020 to 2022), as indicated by the Health Regulatory International, among countries with the highest numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths. The data were adjusted to avoid biases following WHO guidelines. By creating a statistical model, the Infection Risk Indicator (IRI), the Death Risk Indicator (DRI), and the Infectious Disease Control Index (IDCI) were determined. The IDCI was normalized through logarithmic transformation, and linear regression was applied to analyze the correlation between the IDCI and the GDP growth rate. The results showed a more significant correlation in countries with populations over 10 million inhabitants (0.61), particularly in the group with high GDP per capita (0.77), in 2020. The countries with the highest control and economic growth were China (454, 2.3), Ethiopia (211, 6.1), Bangladesh (45, 3.8) and Egypt (39, 3.6). In contrast, Brazil (1.30, –4.1), Mexico (1.36, –8.2), the United States (2, –3.5), Russia (10.7, –3.1) and India (23, –8) showed inverse results. As of August 10, 2021, Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Russia had the lowest Covid-19 (0.2, 0.3, 0.86, 2) among the most populous countries, as well as the highest infection risks (0.3, 0.07, 0.1, 0.04), and high death risks (14.58, 44, 11.5, 11.77). The study objectives were achieved, with the main contributions being that countries with better management of epidemiological control also demonstrated superior GDP growth performance in 2020. Additionally, testing capacity, vaccination, and population size were influential in controlling Covid-19. The IDCI can be used to assess subnational capacities and other diseases, such as Dengue and Monkeypox, contributing to the improvement of public health policies.