ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the relationship between fascism and disease from a transnational historical perspective. It takes into account the COVID-19 pandemic in a context of post-fascist populism that in many cases represents a project that intends, and fails, to become fascism, or in other words, a populism with pretensions to fascism that, beyond its intentions, cannot be completed as such. The chapter intends to think, initially and tentatively, about what happens when these issues are contrasted from a perspective of the history of fascism. Even though one can think of a relationship between science and fascism or even in quotes about a fascist "science", the same cannot be said about the populism that developed during the 20th century. Of course, in populism, as in so many other political movements, metaphors for illness are abundant. The fanatical denial of reality is a key essence of Trumpism, and more generally, of a variant of populism that is increasingly close to fascism.
