From Spanish Flu to Syndemic COVID-19 : long- standing sanitarian vulnerability of Manaus, warnings from the Brazilian rainforest gateway.

Abstract

A second deadlier wave of COVID-19 and the causes of the recent public health collapse of Manaus are compared with the Spanish fl u events in that city, and Brazil. Historic sanitarian problems, and its hub position in the Brazilian airway network are combined drivers of deadly events related to COVID-19. These drivers were amplifi ed by misleading governance, highly transmissible variants, and relaxation of social distancing. Several of these same factors may also have contributed to the dramatically severe outbreak of H1N1 in 1918, which caused the death of 10% of the population in seven months. We modelled Manaus parameters for the present pandemic and confi rmed that lack of a proper social distancing might select the most transmissible variants. We succeeded to reproduce a fi rst severe wave followed by a second stronger wave. The model also predicted that outbreaks may last for up to fi ve and half years, slowing down gradually before the disease disappear. We validated the model by adjusting it to the Spanish Flu data for the city, and confi rmed the pattern experienced by that time, of a fi rst stronger wave in October-November 1918, followed by a second less intense wave in February-March 1919.