Machine learning approaches for localized lockdown during COVID-19: a case study analysis

At the end of 2019, the latest novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 emerged as a significant acute respiratory
disease that has become a global pandemic. Countries like Brazil have had difficulty in dealing
with the virus due to the high socioeconomic difference of states and municipalities. Therefore, this
study presents a new approach using different machine learning and deep learning algorithms applied
to Brazilian COVID-19 data. First, a clustering algorithm is used to identify counties with similar
sociodemographic behavior, while Benford’s law is used to check for data manipulation. Based
on these results we are able to correctly model SARIMA models based on the clusters to predict
new daily cases. The unsupervised machine learning techniques optimized the process of defining
the parameters of the SARIMA model. This framework can also be useful to propose confinement
scenarios during the so-called second wave. We have used the 645 counties from São Paulo state, the
most populous state in Brazil. However, this methodology can be used in other states or countries.
This paper demonstrates how different techniques of machine learning, deep learning, data mining
and statistics can be used together to produce important results when dealing with pandemic data.
Although the findings cannot be used exclusively to assess and influence policy decisions, they offer
an alternative to the ineffective measures that have been used.