Abstract
We study the spread of COVID-19 across neighbourhoods of cities in the developing world and find that small numbers of neighbourhoods account for a majority of cases (k-index approx. 0.7). We also find that the countrywide distribution of cases across states/provinces in these nations also displays similar inequality, indicating self-similarity across scales. Neighbourhoods with slums are found to contain the highest density of cases across all cities under consideration, revealing that slums constitute the most at-risk urban locations in this epidemic. We present a stochastic network model to study the spread of a respiratory epidemic through physically proximate and accidental daily human contacts in a city, and simulate outcomes for a city with two kinds of neighbourhoods—slum and non-slum. The model reproduces observed empirical outcomes for a broad set of parameter values—reflecting the potential validity of these findings for epidemic spread in general, especially across cities of the developing world. We also find that distribution of cases becomes less unequal as the epidemic runs its course, and that both peak and cumulative caseloads are worse for slum neighbourhoods than non-slums at the end of an epidemic. Large slums in the developing world, therefore, contain the most vulnerable populations in an outbreak, and the continuing growth of metropolises in Asia and Africa presents significant challenges for future respiratory outbreaks from perspectives of public health and socioeconomic equity.
Highlights
In the wake of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that is currently sweeping the planet, there is increasing concern over the impact on large urban slums in the developing world
The only exception here is Rio de Janeiro, where we find that neighbourhoods with slums have a lower caseload per capita than non-slum neighbourhoods; this should, be seen in light of the many concerns have been raised about testing and measurement of COVID-19 cases in Brazil’s favelas [13,14,15]
We study the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic across neighbourhoods within a city, for a set of metropolises in the developing world
Summary
In the wake of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that is currently sweeping the planet, there is increasing concern over the impact on large urban slums in the developing world. This concern primarily stems from the nature of dwelling arrangements in developing cities, where large proportions of the population live in densely populated slums and shantytowns [1]. Slums are defined as ‘communities characterized by insecure residential status, poor structural quality of housing, overcrowding and inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and other infrastructure’ [2] This definition emphasizes the fact that slums house the poorest and most vulnerable populations in cities.
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