Social control and nursing performance in defense of life in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: to reflect on social control in health and the contributions that nursing can make to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: this is a theoretical reflection, elaborated from discussions based on literature and the experience of authors' performance in social control and in Primary Care. It is divided into two topics: the first, related to aspects of institutionalized social control; the second, related to the perspectives for nursing in this space.