Between the pandemic and the negationism: the communication of risks of Covid-19 by the Ministry of Health of Brazil

The relationship between communication management, denialism and authoritarianism is very important for reflecting on the consequences of a public health communication policy. Based on the Brazilian context in which the country's highest authority has denied evidence of the seriousness of the pandemic, this article analyzes the Covid-19 risk communication (RC) developed by the federal government itself through the Ministry of Health. We created four CR variables: transparency, risks, adequacy and temporality to analyze the content of the 24 pieces that were part of the communication campaigns of the Ministry of Health, between March and September 2020. The results show the predominance of institutional communication, almost 50% of the pieces were to make the government aware, to the detriment of actions that could alert the population about the risks of the new coronavirus.