The COVID-19 pandemic imposed a major challenge on all health systems on the planet. At the regional level, the state of Ceará (Brazil) differs from other Brazilian regions by an early and rapid onset of its cases, probably due to its high international connectivity by air. Health authorities instituted social isolation measures 3 weeks ago. The authors made a graphical inspection of official data on confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ceará, São Paulo, Brazil and the USA to search for evidence that can help assess the strategy of local health authorities. Logarithmic scale graphs of new cases per day and cumulative cases indicate a high risk situation for the epidemic in Ceará. The tendency for the pandemic to grow seems to be greater in Ceará than in the state of São Paulo, in the whole of Brazil and even in the USA, the country with the greatest growth of the epidemic recently. The maintenance and even the tightening up of social isolation measures seem a logical conclusion to this panorama.