Vaccines as populist tropes in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders in different countries used vaccines to play politics. This study looked at three presidents: Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Donald Trump in the US, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Duterte promised vaccines would magically fix everything, using them as a simple answer to a complex crisis. Trump pushed an "America First" vaccine race to look like a winner. Bolsonaro created doubt about vaccines to fight his political enemies. All three leaders used the vaccine to divide people and boost their own power, showing how a global health crisis can be twisted for political gain.