Medium and long-term societal effects and impacts of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is associated with far-reaching public health and economic consequences, and the medium- and long-term social effects demand sociological analysis. The impact of bereavement and long COVID, the consequences of isolation and job loss, and the changes to working practices and the organisation of home have unsettled our interpersonal and public lives in equal measure. While the global pandemic has been described as non-discriminatory, the experience of the disease has been uneven. Infection, contagion and recovery rates can be tracked by social and economic markers, and the economic consequences are also differentiated by class, ethnicity, gender and place.