“It's just a little flu...” But it left more than half a million dead in Brazil

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world heavily in 2020 with effects in subsequent years. In Brazil, the disease killed more than half a million inhabitants, with approximately one third of the population having access to the first dose of the vaccine, the only immunizing agent scientifically proven to contain the new coronavirus. This scenario stems from the coping policies chosen by the Bolsonaro government to manage the spread of the disease in the national territory. By relating public policies adopted at the federal level to the concepts of biopower, biopolitics, necropower, necropolitics, necrobiopower and necrobiopolitics, associated with aporophobia, using the methods of bibliographic research and observation, this work concluded that the federal government exercised power over the life and death of Brazilians, due to Covid-19. The scope of this study covers the period between March 2020, when the first quarantines were decreed by state governors, due to confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and July 2021, when the Ministry of Health, the body responsible for preparing public health policies in the country, officially reported more than 500,000 deaths, and about 35% of the population had received at least the first dose of the vaccine.