Introduction to the Special Issue on Coronavirus (COVID-19) & Society

Since emerging in late December 2019, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has contributed to over 4.5 million deaths worldwide, and many more “long-haulers” have been left to endure a range of long-term side effects. While impacts on health have been devastating, the COVID-19 pandemic has metastasized through entire societies and nearly every aspect of social life. Indeed, the pandemic has mobilized and changed governments and political parties, economies, public health, medicine, militaries, religions, the media, families, and individuals. While some of these efforts and changes have worked to curtail the pandemic, others have served to prolong the misery and suffering. As we have witnessed the erosion of democratic institutions, the expansion of social inequalities, and the further disintegration of societies, it is unclear whether we will ever really “return to brunch.” One fact is certain. Although medicine and public health are uniquely equipped to address the biological and behavioral aspects of the coronavirus, they are far less suited to contribute to our understanding of the enduring social, cultural, institutional, and structural ramifications of the pandemic. To be sure, these broader questions of society and social life will require years of sociological analysis. To this point, comparatively little work in sociology journals has been devoted to the COVID19 pandemic. As of late March 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) has cataloged over 234,000 pieces of scientific research through its “global literature on the coronavirus disease” database (https://search.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/). While fields like medicine and public health have already written extensively on the pandemic, sociological research has clearly lagged behind. According to the WHO database, only 138 pieces of relevant research appear in the top 50 sociology journals by impact factor or the top 20 sociology journals per Google Scholar metrics. Now that we are just beginning to comprehend the myriad social consequences of the COVID19 pandemic, we expect to see exponential growth in sociological research. But this should come as no surprise. The field of sociology emerged during the crises brought on by industrialization in the late nineteenth century to provide unique insights into a crucial moment of a shifting social order. The COVID-19 pandemic is merely the latest moment to apply a sociological lens to the world in flux. With this in mind, Sociological Perspectives agreed to publish the seminal special issue entirely devoted to original sociological research on the coronavirus (COVID-19) & society. In the section that follows, we describe the major contributions of each article in the issue, organized by theme.