The Catalan media Vilaweb has published the work of researchers Mattia Mazzoli, David Mateo, Alberto Hernando, Sandro Meloni and José Javier Ramasco. At the Universidad de las Illes Balears, Mazzoli, Meloni and Ramasco and Mateo and Hernando are researchers in the field of Physics and Interdisciplinary Complex Systems at the Universidad de las Illes Balears, which processes large amounts of personal data from Kido Dynamics, based in Lausanne.

Researchers have explained that they have analyzed the relationship between the expansion of the pandemic and the displacement of the population. “Specifically, we have compared the number of visitors who have received the main focus of Spain (Madrid) with other provinces, both those who have lived and visited in Madrid and those who have visited Madrid from other provinces, since both directions are important in transmission.”

The COVID-19 mortality rate in each province has crossed with the per capita data of visitors to the Spanish capital one week before the declaration of the state of alarm and a clear correlation has been observed: 76% of the acute mortality is explained by the displacements of each province to Madrid. Researchers have determined that these trips are not the only cause, but they are the biggest, in addition to the difference, in which they occur.

Since Madrid became the focus, the expansion of the pandemic has responded, according to the researchers, to the logic of mobility within the Spanish State. As they have explained, the lack of preventive measures in the early days made inevitable the spread of COVID-19 everywhere.

As these journeys have taken place before the state of alarm, researchers have clarified that no one can be blamed for the fact that things have happened like this.