Facing the Pandemic in Brazil: controversies surrounding “early treatment” and vaccination

Abstract

The article investigates the controversies that emerge with the production of the CoronaVac vaccine, the first Covid-19 vaccine available in Brazil, on June 11th, 2020. Based on Actor-Network Theory, this study is inspired by virtual ethnography. We thus privilege digital documents from government agencies and medical entities, specialized publications, publications in Facebook groups, and the writing of a virtual field diary. Our investigation ends with the approval of the CoronaVac and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). We identify the construction of factoids by groups that were critical of social distancing measures, basing themselves on the use of purportedly scientific arguments. The alliances established between doctors and the federal government through the Ministry of Health challenged the vaccine as a technoscientific artifact, and advocated for drugs that were part of the so-called “early treatment” as the “cure” for the pandemic in Brazil.