Spatiotemporal dynamics of the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Brazil

Since the first cases of community transmission of COVID-19 in Brazil were reported, a large-scale and high-velocity wave of new cases swept the country. Now that enough data was collected, one may ask how did the first wave of coronavirus swept through Brazil? We evaluated official time series data from 5570 Brazilian municipalities to provide a spatiotemporal profile of the first wave of the epidemic in Brazil and evaluate it against the timeline of main events and actions taken in by administrators to improve social distancing measures. The likely pathways and velocity of COVID-19 contagion are unveiled and, among the main results, we show that a network of cities in epidemic states was already set all over the country before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic.