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Abstract

The article synthesizes diverse observations in the autumn of 2020 on the municipal subnational action in Chile to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, corroborating the protagonism and proactivity of the municipalities, the bad perception in surveys of the absent regional governments that in Chile are a central delegation without autonomous revenues. The municipal management combined immediate action with protests to demand quarantines and greater aid from the central government that maintained a successful speech until the June crisis that meant the departure of the Minister of Health due to the dark handling of data and the multiplication of contagions especially in the Santiago Metropolitan Region. The municipal action for confinement, social-food assistance, support for local trade, sanitation of public spaces is described. The high centralization of information from the national media in the right-wing mayor of Santiago and the trivialization of some measures are discovered. However, in an opinion test of 600 cases in communes of the Greater Concepción, municipal management and social organizations are valued, leaving the national government with a mediocre evaluation and a poor rating for regional governments, whose action is also unknown.