Universalists or Utilitarianists? The Social Representation of COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

A fierce debate arose in Brazil on how to manage and mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic—a debate derived from a dissonant perception by society about the actual significance of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Brazilian population has divided into two contrasting philosophical approaches: the universalism—understanding life as an asset of infinite value and, therefore, more important than the country’s economic preservation—and the utilitarianism—where the focus is on the mitigation of the COVID 19 pandemic-enabled economic crisis, due to its potential devastating effect on people’s lives, thereby leaving health issues in the background. The main cause for these different sensemakings is associated with the lack of a monosemic definition for the “COVID-19 pandemic” construct. Thus, the objective of this article is to investigate the social representation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil through the Social Representation Theory operationalized by the word’s evocation technique. The results show that Brazilian society privileged prophylaxis and health, via social isolation, to the detriment of the country’s economic preservation. In addition, trends emphasized by experts, such as a post-pandemic “new-normal” and the digital transformation of society, played a peripheral role in the social representation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.