“…While municipalities like São João das Missões, Araponga, Bonito de Minas, Catuji, Ladainha, Monte Formoso, Setubinha and Frei Lagonegro are among the 5% least developed in Brazil, with an average 𝐻𝐷𝐼 = 0.539 (similar to countries like Pakistan, 0.538, Myanmar, 0.536, and Angola, 0.532), there are others among the 5% most developed, with an average 𝐻𝐷𝐼 = 0.778 (comparable to countries like Malaysia, 0.779, Bulgaria, 0.782, and Uruguay, 0.793) 8 . Generally speaking, Minas Gerais: i) is a relatively heterogeneous region in socioeconomic terms, which allows us to analyze the effects of COVID-19 in markedly different locations (Perobelli;Ferreira;Faria, 2007;Amaral;Lemos;Chein, 2007;Cardoso;Ribeiro, 2015); ii) has the highest concentration of municipalities among the country's 26 states (about 15.3% of the Brazilian total), favoring the asymptotic properties of the estimators; iii) has a rich municipal database, with a low incidence of missing values, an essential attribute for empirical analyses (Firme;Simão Filho, 2014, p. 683). Furthermore, the state is economically representative (with the 3rd largest GDP in Brazil; IBGE, 2021) and has been responsible for approximately 9.2% of the cases and 8.1% of Brazilian deaths (Ministério da Saúde -MS, 2021).…”