Brazil's COVID-19 response

The Editorial¹ about Brazil's response to COVID-19 has caused heated debate among physicians working on the Brazilian health-care frontline against COVID-19 about whether or not there is a place for politics in a high-impact medical journal.

As the illustrious German doctor Rudolph Virchow² noted more than a century ago, “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing more than medicine on a large scale”. We are, first and foremost, chief advocates for patients. Far too often, this role absconds when we leave the laboratory, academic bench, examination room, or hospital. Physicians need to provide their crucial voice to discussions that will have consequences for their patients. Entanglement between politics and medicine might not only be an increasing reality but also a necessity.

Sustained widespread contagion, fast regulatory approvals, a universal public health-care system with one of the best immunisation programmes in the world, and numerous vaccine-making facilities have made Brazil a hope in the search to find a COVID-19 vaccine. The health decisions stated by some Brazilian politicians are becoming increasingly destructive. Some of these politicians have abandoned compromise, negotiation, and humility. They are determined to change and cast Brazil into their mould and design, no matter how often they need to infringe on the Brazilian Constitution to achieve this end.

Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So, let us be hopeful and optimistic. Please continue to keep us in the loop with your idea that entanglement of medical research and politics can, and will, make a difference.