 | By Max Strasser International Editor, Opinion |
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Do you personally know any coronavirus deniers? Those people who really believe the whole thing is a scam or a plot? I don’t think I know any. Even if I plumb the far reaches of my Facebook friends for middle-school classmates, distant cousins and long-lost acquaintances. |
But they are out there. I’ve seen them ranting in viral videos and posting in comment sections, downplaying the effects of the virus or “just asking questions” about the death tolls. Clearly, there’s a strong strain of Covid-19 denialism in America and around the globe. |
On the one hand, I find this understandable. Denial, after all, is the first of the five stages of grief, and we’re all grieving for our pre-coronavirus world. But when it comes to a pandemic, denialism can be deadly, especially when it’s the ideology of people with power. |
In an essay today, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a science reporter for The Times, writes about the history of public health. After it became clear that germs caused fatal diseases, Don writes, American cities undertook projects to ensure sanitation, governments made laws requiring the sterilization of some foods, and some vaccines became mandatory. But, he points out, those measures faced opposition along the way from activists who opposed intervention — and denied the science. Sounds familiar, right? |
In Brazil, it’s not activists as much as it’s the president. In a trenchant — and very funny — Op-Ed video, Felipe Neto, a Brazilian YouTuber with close to 39 million subscribers, talks about President Jair Bolsonaro, who he says, “makes Donald Trump seem like Patch Adams.” Bolsonaro is presiding over what may be the world’s worst coronavirus crisis, and despite recently testing positive for the virus, he still won’t take the pandemic seriously. He even fired his health minister for encouraging social distancing. He’s Brazil’s denier-in-chief. |
Pretending a pandemic isn’t there isn’t going to make it go away, though. It’s only by facing the truth — and doing something about it — that we can deal with this. |
Why do you think there are so many people denying the existence or severity of the coronavirus? Write in with your thoughts to opiniontoday@nytimes.com. We may include them in an upcoming edition. |
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