Covid-19 and times of crisis: between risk and care

Abstract

The article reflects on the notions of risk and care in crisis contexts, taking into account the social experience of Covid-19. The focus is to understand how the institutions and individuals who took part in the public debate dealt with the notion of danger. The article is based on the following axes of reflection: the media discourse, the pronouncements of the then president Bolsonaro, the positioning of health professionals and the perspective of subjects in the daily care and illness. The analysis of journalistic material, statements by government authorities and scientific works on the first two years of the pandemic revealed the polysemy of these conceptions. There is tension around the notion of danger, since the pandemic was seen as both an ordinary and an exceptional event; and care formulated as an individual and collective dimension; in which caregivers were marked by vulnerability, anguish and exhaustion. The pandemic experience in this context took place under the aegis of state and institutional helplessness, in the face of political conditions marked by the resurgence of the extreme right and the Bolsonaro government.