[ad_1]
It only takes 45 seconds for Brazil to appear in the documentary “Explaining … the coronavirus”, made by Netflix in partnership with Vox Media and which premiered on Sunday (26). Along with presidents who downplayed the pandemic, such as American Donald Trump and Iranian Hassan Rohani, as well as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (before he fell ill himself), Jair Bolsonaro says the new coronavirus is a fantasy.
The country reappears in a demonstration scene in favor of Bolsonaro on March 15, when protesters in green and yellow shirts ignored the official cancellation of the acts due to the pandemic, which had already appeared here and was severely punishing other countries. .
It is for groups like these that question social isolation that the series seems to want to preach. Step by step, the episode deconstructs the discourse of the denialist leaders with science, history and shocking scenes in the Italian ICUs until reaching the good examples: Canada, South Korea, New Zealand.
However, for those who closely follow the news and scientific dissemination on the subject, much of the episode has a déjà vu face.
The powerful voice of the actor JK Simmons explains, didactically and with the help of good infographics, that the new virus belongs to the coronavirus family, it was called Sars-CoV-2, it causes a disease called Covid-19, it would have jumped from animals humans in a live animal market in China and is less deadly than Ebola and less infectious than measles.
The film also plays keys already repeated until exhaustion, but important: what are the most common symptoms of the infection and who is at higher risk of complications (men, the elderly, chronically ill). He also talks about the well-known expression “flatten the curve”, about the need to spread cases over time to avoid patient spikes and overload hospitals.
Against the expectation of miracle drugs, the documentary reminds that antivirals are difficult to develop and that the best way to beat a virus is to become immune to it. The problem is that 1) betting on so-called herd immunity, as the UK tried to do, can cost millions of lives, 2) a safe and effective vaccine can take a few years, and 3) the other coronaviruses do not give immunity for life. and it is probable that the new also behaves like this, as was pointed out in the cases of reinfection in Asia, due to the sadness of those who have already been infected and promote parties betting on supposed protection.
Until the dream vaccine arrives, it will be necessary to defend against the quarantine “old school” weapon, which appeared at the time of the medieval Black Death and was successfully used by some American cities during the Spanish flu in 1918.
The documentary features excerpts from premonitory interviews with Bill Gates of “Pandemic”, also from Netflix and released in 2019, and criticizes China for its delay in taking action and for trying to hide the severity of the outbreak.
It also reveals that the WHO (World Health Organization) itself said, in September of last year, that the world was not prepared for a pandemic and says that it did not come out of nowhere: human actions such as deforestation, living with isolated animals and Animal confinement have prepared the ground for what we live in and can cause new nightmares.
But, to try to finish in an optimistic tone, remember that until now no virus has defeated us, which is obvious, since we are here to tell this story. However, to win this battle, it will be necessary to bet more on science than on guesswork, remedies without proven efficacy and disinfectant.
Explaining … the coronavirus
United States, 2020, 26 min. Available on Netflix
