Abstract
One year after the ‘arrival’ of the new coronavirus in Brazil, although the infection numbers did not show any decline, a process of resumption of activities and adaptation to the ‘new-normal’ has started. Thus, the main goal of this article is to show how an epidemic is built as a health emergency, what are the markers of its temporality and mainly, how it is produced in a process of obliteration and externalization of factors that are often inherent to its effects. In order to do so, we recalled the trajectory of two previous ‘epidemic’ experiences, lived in Brazilian territory, hunger and the Zika virus. We aim to show, through this comparison, that the COVID-19 epidemic needs to be understood taking into consideration that its trajectory is produced in conjunction with other health and disease experiences. If the meanings of the ‘new normal’ are being questioned, it is important to bring to light the processes reproduce daily the ‘normal anew’.
Keywords:
epidemic; hunger, zika virus; COVID-19