My wife is Brazilian, and we were in both Manaus (Amazonas) and Minas Gerais in March as lockdowns were being rolled out. Manaus: the consensus in the general

My wife is Brazilian, and we were in both Manaus (Amazonas) and Minas Gerais in March as lockdowns were being rolled out. Manaus: the consensus in the general population seemed to be that the city was (1) too remote for COVID to arrive (2) heat and sun would stifle it and (3) their endemic diseases (malaria, dengue etc) were worse anyways so who cares? People seemed to mostly ignore the first lockdown measures. Now, maybe ~30% of the people we know personally in the city have had COVID. Overall, it seems like there is a lot of death but we stopped following closely because it was too painful. Minas Gerais: impressive lockdown in March. Small cities in the interior quarantined immediately, screening checkpoints with nurses everywhere. I have no idea how things turned out there but my guess is pretty well. Return to USA: we bailed out of Brazil as soon as we could due to the lockdowns. The only sign in the Houston airport that COVID existed at that point was a small sign warning travelers from Wuhan to self-quarantine. Embarrassing.