Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has been a global outlier among major world leaders by downplaying the severity of the disease, famously referring to it as a “little flu.” While his opposition to social distancing has caused no concrete change to public policy around the country — state governors are in charge of these decisions within their own territorial lines and all have employed some form of social distancing measures — the fear among health experts is that the president’s message may encourage citizens to disobey confinement rules.
