ABSTRACT
Summary: The principles which define a state of exception and their bearing on the Covid-19 measures are raised in this chapter. The policy and legal recourses taken in some contexts by way of clarifying what an emergency means are outlined. These are traced through ambiguities and doubts but nevertheless express a will to prevent the contagion from spreading. Somewhat more worryingly, a few interventions find that in some contexts, notably in Brazil, a state of exception was marked more in the persistent undermining of emergency measures than in their regulation – where, it may be said, a political crisis superseded the health crisis to exacerbate the exceptionality of the juncture. The manner in which such a political crisis appeared and what it says about politics at large (not only within a specific context) occupies the latter part of this chapter.
