Sociological Surveillance of the Pandemic: Exploring Interconnectedness, Panic, and Waves of Crisis

Abstract

The relevance of the sociological study of the COVID-19 pandemic is determined not only by medical problems (zero-patient, the speed of vaccine creation against the virus, the speed of disease spread, etc.), but also by social problems concerning the interaction of people, the impact of the pandemic on social, political, economic, and cultural fields, the processes of transforming social institutions and structures, and the dynamics of the social process both in management and organization, as well as self-organization. The author suggests employing an arsenal of sociological methods and approaches for analysis. The main subject of the article is the problem of studying the impact of a pandemic on modern society with its informational, cognitive-innovative, and hyper-realistic certainty. The author explores the phenomenon of the pandemic, its impact as a global threat and danger on micro, meso, and macro-social structures and organizations, on the main institutions of society, and on international institutions. The pandemic becomes a process of social "freezing" in the broad sense, meaning any relationships among people, but also entails social, political, economic, and cultural constraints; both public and international constraints of states and international institutions. At the same time, the pandemic produces panic as a social phenomenon in various dimensions of masses (socio-behavioral), socio-organizational and institutional, and on a global scale through prompt replication, repetition, modification, rumor, gossip, and information warfare. The theory of social fractality serves as a study of the processes of mimesis, replication, and scaling in masses, socially organizational and global dynamics. The author differentiates various phases of the impact of the pandemic on international processes as certain phases and waves of interaction between countries in the struggle and solidarity. All these define new trends for governments and the world community.