KEY WORDS: COVID-19, EPIDEMIC, VIRUS, PORTUGAL, BRAZIL, RIO DE JANEIRO, JAIR BOLSONARO, SOCIAL NETWORKS, MASKS, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, DÉJÀ VU, HIV/AIDS

I, along with everyone else in the public health community, have been tracking the progression of the COVID-19 epidemic. At the beginning of March 2020 I traveled to Oporto, Portugal to take part in the examination committee of a doctoral thesis. On the very day of my departure my daughter called me from Berlin to ask if I had seen the news of the closing of the Oporto University’s Medical School, where the examination was going to take place. After a quick exchange of emails it was confirmed and so I went.

For the few days I was there, Oporto and Portugal were at the turning point of political decisions. A determination was made to close down all schools. Aside from that everything went fine - I was received with the traditional Portuguese hospitality and had an uneventful stay.

On the flight back home, many passengers on the plane were wearing masks, mostly incorrectly. A woman to my side had a mask covering her mouth and chin, with the nose free. She and the man beside her were also wearing surgical gloves. A kid a few seats ahead had a mask, and took it off to sneeze.

As I got out of the plane, no instructions were given to anyone; there were no health surveillance personnel on the ground, only a few billboards with generic information on the new disease. And nowhere did it say that people coming from Europe, like me, should be quarantined for at least a week upon return, I found that out on my own and complied.

Life came to a halt. I have to admit I am having immense difficulties in concentrating and doing something useful. I have spent an inordinate amount of time online, trying to provide information based on trusted sources. Lots of misinformation has been spread, as usual. I have been particularly irked by conspiracy theories blaming the virus either on the United States or China, depending on the person’s political allegiances. Even with published articles declaring clearly that there is absolutely no evidence of a fabricated virus, actually showing that it has evolved from previous known strains, some of my acquaintances keep flogging that dead horse, basically repeating silly allegations made by Chinese officials which were in turn a response – inappropriate, in my opinion – to even sillier allegations from US officials.

Here in Brazil, as in the US, we have a president who seems to operate in total disconnect from reality. President Jair Bolsonaro has urged people to get out of confinement in order to “save the economy” (which was already on the ropes before that), greedy people around them make horrible statements that boil down to something along the lines of “What is the problem of a few thousand people dying? They will be mostly old and sick people anyway.” Many people, some of whom should know better, have made a variety of statements underestimating the extent of the threat. Near the end of February a famous Italian philosopher published an article in the press claiming that the “invention of an epidemic,” of something that was just a “normal cold,” was being used to further social control of the Italian government over its population. About a month afterwards, we have all seen what happened there. It should be a warning, but – as they say - denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

I have a sense of déjà vu with those events, hearkening back to the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 1983 I was graduating from medical school in Brazil as the epidemic reached here. I kept track of it and later did my PhD thesis on the construction of AIDS as a medical category. Then, as now, I saw different groups exploiting the new disease to provide arguments to support their favorite theses. The archbishop of Rio de Janeiro at the time, for instance, published an editorial blaming it on gays – the victims. As then, I was reminded of a concept put forward by scholars who developed a branch of social psychology called institutional analysis: the analyzer. In a nutshell, that’s an event that puts out in the open relationships and structures that were previously hidden or implicit. Pandemics elicit all kinds of reactions, some awful, some sublime. Some people hoard protective masks, others go to their windows and balconies to applaud and encourage health workers.

The much maligned – often with good cause – social networks became the lifeline that has kept us all connected. Their positive side, often overlooked, has become obvious once again. Thanks to social media I can keep in touch with family and friends from near and far.

Science, repeatedly attacked by all kinds of negationisms, has once again shown its strengths and is widely acknowledged as the source of possible responses to the crisis. The ugliness and shortcomings of the neoliberal ideology have been made evident once again. There is nothing like a huge crisis to turn laissez-fair neoclassical economic theorists into Keynesians.

I wonder how the world will look at the end of this. I fear that, once again, the lessons will be quickly forgotten.

P.S.: When the first version of this article was finished, 77 people had died in Brazil due to COVID19. About two months later, the death toll is nearing 29,000, and giving no signs of abating. Stay safe.