Brazil has one of the worst COVID-19 scenarios in the world. By mid-July, there were more than 2 million confirmed cases and more than 80,000 deaths related to COVID-19. This is not by accident. Since the beginning of the pandemic in the country in late February, the federal government, and particularly the president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a far-right neofascist, has denied its existence and sent confusing messages to the public such as “COVID-19 is a mild flu”, “It is much ado about nothing”. A despicable person: when asked once about the death record, he replied “And so what? I am not a gravedigger. I am a ‘messiah’, but I don't work miracles” (The Lancet Editorial 2020).

Therefore, Brazil faces this crisis without national health measures coordinated by the federal government, with less health investment and less social and labour protections than previously, due to ultra-neoliberal reforms carried out in recent years, especially after the coup d’etat against the democratically elected Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff from the Workers Party, in 2016.

Since Rouseff was ousted, subsequent governments, backed by parliament and the judiciary, have imposed a radical neoliberal model characterised by social exclusion, authoritarianism and loss of national sovereignty. In the last four years, with the support of Pentecostal churches, agribusiness, pharmaceutical companies, banks, the middle classes and national and international capital, policies have become anti-democratic, anti-labour and anti-people, with the loss of rights in social security, health, education and labour and environment protections.

The most important legislative change is Constitutional Amendment n. 95 (2016) which froze health and education investment, including research, for 20 years. And following labour reform (2017), millions of workers were thrown into the informal market without social protection.

Historically, Brazil is one of the countries with the highest wealth concentration and social inequalities. Therefore, COVID-19- related deaths are more associated with postcode rather than age and comorbidity in the country. However, this is also a country known for its strong grassroots movements like the MST (Workers Landless Movement), the MTST (Workers Homeless Movement), the Workers Party and other social and workers’ movements that have permanently placed on the national agenda the struggle between profits and lives.