With an admittedly grossly underestimated death toll of more than half a million, Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also one in which the catastrophic effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be attributed, with little space for controversy, to the adoption of public policies based on pseudoscience and disregard of sound scientific advice.
President Jair Bolsonaro, elected to office in 2018 and in power since 2019, not only strong-armed the Ministry of Health into promoting false “cures” and “preventives” for the disease—including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and vitamin D—but used the prestige of his office and the visibility of his public persona to deride the use of masks and the need for social distancing and even to smear vaccines (in one of his speeches he joked that “unproven” vaccines could “turn you into an alligator”). He even threatened to mobilize the army against state governors who tried to impose strict lockdowns.
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