By way of example, the United States and Brazil, although somewhat distinct, are both suffering greatly from COVID-19 and are considering reopening. Both are led by aggressive populists who rose to power as antielite and antiestablishment figures. Their leaders are prone to reject the opinions of scientists, promote conspiracy theories and undermine media that oppose them. Yet now they seek to avoid blame for any failure to ameliorate COVID-19 damage.

By reducing the lack of public trust in the public health sector and in their governments’ administrative ability, politicians in the US and Brazil have effectively politicized the pandemic and the associated decision to restart their economies.

In the case of the US, President Trump’s contempt for experts has made wearing masks a partisan issue. Even though it is now widely agreed that wearing a mask is a powerful tool to avoid COVID-19, the non-wearing of a mask has transitioned into a political signal of a reopened nation that Trump wishes to have. So, he refuses to wear one in public or urge others to do so. With the presidential election in November and his approval rating plummeting, Trump views a hasty reopening of the country as a political imperative.

Trump leads the Republican Party, which has been actively pushing to open up, including moving their convention to a location with less COVID-19 restrictions. On the other hand, the opposing Democrats are more willing to wear masks and are more comfortable with avoiding relaxing social distancing measures. For Trump, the pandemic is personal, since he sees his power being attacked by experts who disagree with him and his reopening ambitions. Consequently, relaxation itself has become a political football in America.

This is similar to Brazil. In addition to firing his health minister, President Bolsonaro has been feuding with health experts, going so far as to withhold government obtained data because he wished to avoid disclosure of the extent of COVID-19’s harm to Brazil. Even now, with coronavirus cases surging in Brazil, he has been strong-arming his local governments to transition to reopening the economy.

By contrast, the relaxation of social distancing measures never became a political issue in South Korea. This was because both the opposition and the government agreed that aggressive steps to stop the virus were important from the beginning.

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