A incidência da Covid-19 nos maiores municípios mineradores brasileiros

The Brazilian mineral industry has maintained a steady growth rate in recent years and despite the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected all economic activity sectors, mining performance showed significant growth in 2020, generating public revenues from mining royalties 35% higher than the previous year. One of the first measures the brazillian government took to deal with the pandemic was the determination of which activities came to be considered essential for sustaining the economy and guaranteeing the means to overcome the crisis, among which the mineral activity was considered. In order to present the Covid-19 panorama of contagion in the largest Brazilian mining municipalities and to point out those most at risk, the qualitative methodology of this research involved the survey of the municipal incidence rate of Covid-19 in the 133 largest mining municipalities, that were selected based on the annual collection of royalties above R$ 1 million in 2019. The evolution of the stock of jobs in the extractive industry was also monitored to determine the degree of its participation on the incidence of Covid-19, the maintenance of mineral activity during the pandemic and its relevance among the other economic sectors that were active in the selected municipalities. As a result, it was found that among the 133 selected mining municipalities, which account for 95.91% of the CFEM collected, 90 municipalities, representing 88.44% of the CFEM, can be considered affected by the pandemic, from which 23 municipalities present incidence rates considered very high and above the national average.