The Coronavirus Crisis in Brazil: an Initial Historical Assessment

An event part of the UCL Americas Research Network 'The Long History of the Coronavirus Crisis' lecture series. Brazil currently has the second highest COVID-related death toll in the world, behind only the United States. Circumstances are so bleak that many hospitals lack even basic medical supplies as a new, more contagious variant sweeps through Latin America’s largest nation. Drawing on theoretical insights from the social history of medicine, Marcos Cueto and Gabriel Lopes chart how Brazil’s early response to coronavirus was hampered by institutional and political paralysis. While the vaccine rollout offers a potential roadmap out of the crisis, it has simultaneously silenced voices calling for an end to glaring inequalities, amplifying pre-existing social and political cleavages. Speakers: Marcos Cueto is a professor at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz, in Rio de Janeiro. He is the author of countless books, including The World Health Organization: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Gabriel Lopes is a postdoctoral researcher at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz working on the history of virus and vectors in the urban ecology of diseases in Latin America.