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Leo Bastos

Leo Bastos

@leosbastos.bsky.social

3.3K followers 340 following 290 posts

Public health researcher at Fiocruz 🇧🇷 Associate professor at IMPA Tech 🇧🇷 Bayesian statistician 📈 Infectious diseases modelling 🦠🦟 Father of 3 boys (be nice).

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Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Feb 3

If you somehow found my profile, I usually post/complain about:
- Statistics (I am Bayesian with a preference for fast methods like INLA)
- Epidemiology (Infectious diseases epidemiology, outbreak surveillance, climate-sensitive diseases)
- Politics (I consider myself a progressist)
- Brazil 🇧🇷

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · 20d

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..."

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · 20d

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 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 .

media.tenor.com

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · 20d

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!

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 .

media.tenor.com

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Oct 4

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...

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 …

www.sciencedirect.com

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Sep 4

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

A statistical model for forecasting probabilistic epidemic bands for dengue cases in Brazil

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

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Sep 4

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

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Sep 4

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).

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Sep 4

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

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Sep 4

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...

Reposted by Leo Bastos

Paula Moraga @paulamoraga.bsky.social · Aug 27

📢 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 [email protected]

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Aug 9

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

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

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Aug 5

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

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Aug 2

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)

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 26

I would suggest this one too.

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 26

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.

sites.stat.columbia.edu

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 24

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.

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 24

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

69ª Reunião Anual da Região Brasileira da Sociedade Internacional de Biometria (RBras) e do 21º Simpósio de Estatística Aplicada à Experimentação Agronômica – SEAGRO

69rbras21seagro.com.br

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 24

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... 😅)

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 .

media.tenor.com

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 21

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

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

Brazilian tanager - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 19

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...

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

www.theguardian.com

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 14

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)

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 13

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

Reposted by Leo Bastos

Paula Moraga @paulamoraga.bsky.social · Jul 7

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

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jun 26

We had a very special visitor today, @paulamoraga.bsky.social gave us a great lecturer on Spatial data science in R.

Thanks Paula!

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 6

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)

Leo Bastos @leosbastos.bsky.social · Jul 6

It is a bit frustrating knowing that the 2028 ISBA World meeting will be in the US (Milwaukee). Nothing against the venue itself, but to have to pass through the annoying Visa process a Brazilian has to do.

It may be convenient for most Bayesians, but it is not for me.