This dataset comprises data on new and accumulated confirmed cases and death episodes for each Brazilian municipality, by epidemiological week.

Criteria used for confirmed cases (mild and moderate cases): Laboratory Clinical epidemiological Clinical criterion Clinical image Death episodes refer to COVID-19 confirmed cases that progressed to death. Reference date for cases: symptom onset date (preferably) notification or testing date (for missing data) Reference date for deaths: death or case closing date notification or testing date (for missing data) Age groups follow a five-year window. Phase and peak variables according to the epidemiological week in which the cases and deaths occurred.

This dataset was used as part project - Evaluating Effects of Social Inequalities on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil. Maria Yury Ichihara and colleagues at the Centre for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (Cidacs) at Fiocruz in Brazil created a social disparities index to measure inequalities relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as unequal access to healthcare, to identify regions that are more vulnerable to infection and to better focus prevention efforts.

In Brazil, markers of inequality are associated with COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. They developed the index with available COVID-19 surveillance data, hosted on the Cidacs platform, and built a public data visualisation dashboard to share the index and patterns of COVID-19 incidence and mortality with the broader community. This enabled health managers and policymakers to monitor the pandemic situation in the most vulnerable populations and target social and health interventions.

Permissions to use this dataset must be obtained from the Ministry of Health Brazil.