Leo Bastos

SARI (Severe acute respiratory illness) cases with influenza detection in Brazil. We had a clear outbreak associated with H1N1 and some states had a second outbreak associated with H3N2. This second "wave" different from the first one is completely out of season.

Tati presented, in the same session, her work on epidemics bands for RSV hospitalizations in Brazil.

Today, Lais presented her work on the impact of ENSO in dengue incidences in Brazil.

Oswaldo, on the right side, was chairing her session.

Myself pretending to know something about nowcast and forecast dengue cases.

Yesterday, I gave a talk on the E-vigilancia ("e-surveilance") conference at the FGV (Getúlio Vargas Foundation).

My talk was about how Google trends data could improve nowcasts and short term forecasts of dengue cases in Brazil.

Marcelo (Fiocruz) and Flavio (FGV) were in the same session.

This is somehow scary. Everyone is aware that AI has been used during the writing of a manuscript, but as expected it will eventually be part of the revision process.

So scientific publication is going through a big change, and I guess the impact of research will no longer be measured on papers.

The linkedin games for some reason stopped working on my mobile so I lost my sequences. Although it is only a couple of minutes per day,I haven't realised I was consistently wasting plenty of time with them. I'm glad I am free of them...

I hope I can reduce my pace, and start working on fewer and slower projects.

I wish I could talk to myself before the pandemic. "You don't need to work that much, seriously it won't make any difference..."

a young boy in a yellow shirt is smiling with his eyes closed and making a funny face . ALT: a young boy in a yellow shirt is smiling with his eyes closed and making a funny face .

Each project alone is quite interesting, the problem is the large number of them that I got involved due to my profound difficulty of saying NO...

Today, I spent almost the whole day jumping from one online meeting to another, I even had lunch in front of my PC while attending another meeting.

a man is walking down a hallway with a suitcase and a dog . ALT: a man is walking down a hallway with a suitcase and a dog .

Since I've been working on statistical modelling of infectious diseases from the pandemic onwards I got involved in too many projects leading to several publications which seems nice but it is not! If I could go back in time I would definitely work less, half of it or less.

I am exhausted now!

Characterization of the most austral autochthonous dengue outbreak reported in the world (city of Bahía Blanca, Argentina, January–June 2024). A cross-sectional study Dengue is a vector-borne viral disease that is expanding its boundaries, causing outbreaks and autochthonous viral circulation in places where it had …

In this paper, we describe the southernmost dengue outbreak ever reported. The outbreak occurred on the city of Bahia Blanca, Argentina (~600km south of Buenos Aires).

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

And I forgot to add in the thread the dashboard we made to show the results of the paper:

dcpcamara-picinini-freitas-et-al-2025.share.connect.posit.cloud

This way I don't forget mentioning anyone. :-) Thanks everyone.

Here one can see how heterogeneous is the relationship between the observed dengue cases and the model predictions in country by health regions in the two seasons (2022-2023 and 2023-2024).

We suggest the use of posterior predictive quantiles to define epidemic levels.

NEW PAPER

We developed a statistical model to forecast dengue cases for the next season using the history of cases only. We suggest using the posterior predictive to define epidemics bands.

For instance, we could see how huge was 2024 dengue season in Brazil.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📢 NEW PAPER! In response to 2024 dengue epidemic we built Dengue-tracker 🦟📈 to improve nowcasts in Brazil by combining surveillance data + Google Trends

🔗 diseasesurveillance.github.io/dengue-tracker
📄 doi.org/10.1371/jour...

🙌 With Guilherme Soares,Rafael Izbicki,Yang Xiao&@leosbastos.bsky.social

Leo Bastos is presenting a slide with Thomas Bayes and John Snow at a conference.

I usually don't like pictures of myself, but I like this one.

When Thomas Bayes meets John Snow. Presented in Vitória, capital of Espírito Santo state, at the 69th RBRAS meeting and 21st SEAGRO

The #JSM2025 is about to start, the JSM is by far the biggest stats conference I've attended. I went to Miami Beach and Boston, it was a great experience. But nowadays I prefer relatively smaller conferences and outside the US (my visa expired and I am not keen to pass through the application again)

I would suggest this one too.

I would suggest Andrew Gelman's books

sites.stat.columbia.edu/gelman/books/

In particular, Bayesian Data Analysis and Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models.

Another curiosity, in 2001 as an undergrad stats student I attended the same (joint) conference, the 46th RBRAS and the 9th SEAGRO, in Piracicaba (SP). There I gave my very first oral presentation talking about the partition product model applied on a variance changing points problem.

The conference is the 69th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Region of the International Society of Biometrics (RBras) and the 21st Symposium on Statistics Applied to Agricultural Experimentation (SEAGRO).

69rbras21seagro.com.br

a close up of a man making a funny face while smiling . ALT: a close up of a man making a funny face while smiling .

In two weeks, I will be a keynote speaker in a national stats conference. I am quite happy about that but also very nervous.

I will talk about Bayesian learning on infectious disease surveillance, so it is time to start preparing my talk (and finish it 10 minutes before the actual conference... 😅)

Brazilian tanager - Wikipedia

This one is quite similar a species that I love and sometimes I can spot here in Rio.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazili...

Rubio moves to strip US visas from eight Brazilian judges in Bolsonaro battle Move by Marco Rubio is latest attempt by Trump administration to help former president avoid justice over alleged coup

Can you imagine if last year the Brazilian visa were revoked from the NY judge and the jury members (and their families) after Trump being convicted of crimes? Super weird, isn't it? Well, it seems the opposite is OK for some...

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Trump will soon add new tariffs for all countries to guarantee global security like Italian mafia or Brazilian militia does on their territories (you can name your "favourite" group/organisation/gang/whatever that charges others to guarantee their security)

I am quite surprised and impressed by Chelsea's result at the final against PSG.

But the match I am interested in today is from another blue jersey team at the Brasileirão 🦊😅😬

Cruzeiro X Grêmio

Many thanks @leosbastos.bsky.social and everyone at Fiocruz for the warm welcome! I really enjoyed hearing about all the exciting work happening here and visiting the beautiful Rio de Janeiro! 💚💛💙

#rstats #GISchat #diseasesurveillance

I know there is plenty of time, and once one gets the visa it opens doors to other events etc... But it doesn't change the fact that to get a visa here is quite annoying, near humiliating and I am not keen to do it again (my old visa has expired)