Deaths from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Indigenous People in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (2020–2021)

Abstract

During the new coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, the conflicting measures of the central government denying the severity of the issue, on the one hand, and of states and municipalities obeying health and epidemiological guidelines, on the other, exacerbated the already high vulnerability of the population. The insufficient and weak healthcare infrastructure to face the pandemic has affected especially those who are victims of intense socio-spatial exclusion, such as the indigenous population. In this sense, this article seeks to describe deaths from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in indigenous people in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state. It is an ecological, descriptive, and analytical study that uses an open database of deaths from SARS up until September 2021. Clusters and outliers of the indigenous population were mapped with the census sectors parameter, using the Anselin Local Moran's I model and the spatialization of demarcated indigenous lands. The relative risk of death of indigenous people compared to the white population in selected municipalities was calculated. The results indicate that deaths from SARS are disproportionate for indigenous people in clustered areas and that the relative risk of death in some municipalities with a high concentration of this population as compared to whites is especially high in the northern part of the state. Therefore, to adopt geostrategic measures to contain and repair the severe impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic is a pressing need.