COVID-19 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: a perspective on epidemiological events

Introduction: the progression of SARS-CoV-2 highlighted the Americas region for the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. In Brazil, the Southeast region was one of the most affected, especially the state of Rio de Janeiro, due to its cosmopolitan characteristics. Objective: to analyze temporal variations in the incidence, mortality and lethality of COVID-19 in the state of Rio de Janeiro from January 2020 to December 2022. Methods: ecological time-series study with publicly available data on COVID-19 cases and deaths. Crude incidence, mortality, and fatality rates, and estimates of percent daily change (DPC) were analyzed using Prais-Winsten linear regression. With calculation of crude rates were performed using Microsoft Excel 2019, and DPC estimates were performed using STATA MP 17.0 software. Results: 2.5 million cases and 76 thousand COVID-19 deaths were confirmed in the state of Rio de Janeiro from 2020 to 2022, with lethality declining from 4.89% to 0.60%. The highest lethality occurred in May 2020 (11.59%), October 2021 (9.13%) and March 2022 (6.78%), showing a stationary trend. In 2020, incidence and mortality rates peaked in December (797.76 per 100,000 inhabitants) and May (43.96 per 100,000 inhabitants), respectively, followed by subsequent declines. Incidence trend was increasing in 2020 and stationary in 2022, while mortality decreased in 2021 and 2022 after stability in 2020. Conclusion: The incidence of COVID-19 peaked in 2020 and subsequently declined, suggesting partial transmission control. Mortality stabilized after 2020, indicating evolution in health care. Lethality showed a stationary trend, indicating an improvement in hospital capacity. The divergent behavior of the epidemiological indicators reflected the complex dynamics of the pandemic in the analyzed state. There were 790 thousand deaths from COVID-19 in the State of Rio de Janeiro in the period from 2020 to 2022.