Social Ramifications of Coronavirus 2019

Posted: January 4th, 2023

Social Ramifications of Coronavirus 2019

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Social Ramifications of Coronavirus 2019

Abstract

The novel coronavirus has presented as Covid-19 disease pandemic that has ravaged the entire world. As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads across the world, it brings unprecedented social effects that are only comparable to those of the Black Death pandemic of the 14^th century. The global social order as is known today could be on the precipice of being transformed irreversibly if the pandemic continues to rake havoc to the national and international economic order through its disruption to social interactions and everyday way of life. The contemporary capitalistic world order is threatened, while the massive inequalities across the world have been exposed by the social ramifications of the pandemic.

Classical and contemporary social theories can help explain the social effects of Covid-19 with prominent theorists providing concept that are application to this modern day global crisis. While the classical social theories by Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber, and contemporary ones advanced by Robert Merton, Harold Garfinkel, Pierre Bourdieu, W. E. B. Du Bois, Michael Omi and Howard Winant attended to diverse social issues, Covid-19 presents a social phenomenon through which these theories can be applied to a contemporary global society. This discussion applies these social theories to explain the social effects of Covid-19 and the implications to the social order of the modern world.      

Introduction of Covid-19

Covid-19 is a new disease that is caused a novel virus called the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) and has reached pandemic proportions since its outbreak in December of 2019. The disease first broke out in Wuhan, China and has spread across the world having infected over 7.5 million people and killed over 419,000 by 11^th of June 2020. With the number of new cases rising to above 100,000 daily since late March and the fatalities having peaked at 8,435 daily in mid-April, the disease continues to ravage many countries across the world with devastating consequences (Worldometers, 2020). Notably, the United States has been particularly devastated by Covid-19, having 2,117,991 million cases of infected people and 116,847 fatalities by June 13, 2020. In this respect, the country ranks first in cases and fatalities, with Brazil being a far second with its 831,064 cases and 41,052 as of the same date (Worldometers, 2020).  

The global economy has been largely shut down since many countries have instituted bans on international travel and closed their borders to foreigners to stem the spread of the pandemic. Moreover, governments in many countries have ordered their citizen to stay at home, further slowing economic activities. Although some countries are experiencing an infection slowdown and have started opening up their economies, this is being done with new restrictions, such as wearing face masks, maintaining social distance, avoiding crowding, and maintaining frequent hand hygiene standards. In this respect, Covid-19 is a social phenomenon that is continuing to unfold among people that have never experienced a global pandemic of its proportions (MacGregor, et al. 2020). Many of its effects are associated to people’s way of life and the changes they are experiencing.

Effects of COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic has affected all aspects of human life along the political, economic, social, and legal dimensions. Specifically, governments have had to restrict movement within, and in and out of their countries. They also have had to give health guidelines to slow or eliminate the spread of the pandemic through their health ministries, considering that the disease has presented a national and global public health crisis. Moreover, the domestic and global economies have been disrupted significantly, with the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in many countries and across the world having slowed down to a trickle. Global GDP is projected to contract by 5.2% with some developed economies expected to experience shrinkages of up to 7% (World Bank, 2020). In this regard, many countries and the world are staring at an economic recession, whose impact will deepen as the pandemic continues. Legally, many governments have had to activate and tighten their public health laws, regulation and guidelines, with some, like in the United Arab Emirates, instituting steep and punitive fines for those that violate the safety rules. For instance, UAE residents that violate quarantine requirements are paying fines of up to $13,613 for a single violation (Nammour, 2020).

The social effects of the pandemic are diverse and far-reaching because the way of life is undergoing significant changes. This has caused the crisis to be termed as a black swan event only comparable to the World War 2 and the Great Depression scenarios, due to its unpredictability and potentially severe consequences (Nicola, et al., 2020). Notably, social interactions are changing from the physical to virtual spheres following the discouragement of physical congregations. Besides, with schools closed, children cannot play outdoors and families are discouraged from visiting their elderly relatives. Sporting and entertainment activities have been curtailed and people are forced to stay indoors with minimal physical activity. Further, the economic hardships and traumatic experiences from massive fatalities are presenting psychological challenges and the risk of developing mental illnesses, with the cases of domestic violence having risen and some people committing suicide. Notably, the political, economic, and legal changes that are ongoing across the world are having unprecedented social implications that are capable of changing the contemporary social order. For instance, the globalized networks may change dramatically due to virtualization of human interactions. In addition, much of the global travel may be replaced by virtual travel as countries impose restrictions on international visitors. Moreover, many advanced economies may divert their resources towards enhancing domestic resilience against future pandemics, denying developing countries of the much-needed resources for improving the social wellbeing of their citizenry. Besides, global trade may be changed irreversibly as countries seek to improve their self-sufficiency to counter the disruptions in global supply chains. Altogether, neoliberal globalization may be succumbing to glocalization as countries become more inward-looking to address the gaps exposed in globalized systems.

In the United States, stubborn deep-seated racial tensions have escalated dramatically, with the recent killing of an African American, George Floyd, by white police officers sparking protests and riots across the country. Although such incidences have occurred before, this time, there is a global uproar against racism and inequalities across the world, with statues of famous personalities like Christopher Columbus in the United States and Edward Colston in the United Kingdom being taken down in protest. Besides, the political rhetoric in the country has changed dramatically, considering that this is an electioneering year, with all the implicated police officers being charged with manslaughter and murder, many politicians weighing in on the endemic racism and inequalities, reforms weeping across the police departments, and the Black Lives Matter movement gaining impetus (BBC, 2020). Besides, over 33 million Americans have lost their jobs, and the buying leisure behaviors of people has changed significantly as demand drops amid panic buying, affecting the retail, manufacturing, transport, and entertainment sectors the most (Rushe, 2020). African Americans and those in the low socioeconomic status have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic due to their low incomes, inability to access healthcare services because they lack health insurance, have no wealth and savings, continue working outside their homes as essential service providers, and live in crowded environments, thus unable to practice social distancing guidelines. The capitalistic order of the United States threatened by the reduced global trade due to restricted travel and decreased demand, endangering many livelihoods. In turn, the deteriorating psychological wellbeing of many Americans may cause an increase mental health cases.   

Social Response of COVID-19

The social responses to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic are numerous and varied across the world. As a social phenomenon of global proportions, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused nations across the world to pay more attention to the social wellbeing of their citizenry and their resilience during global crises. In the United States, the government has increased social protection by waiving testing fees for the uninsured, increasing cash payouts, and bailing out businesses. Although the country has avoided a nationwide lockdown, night curfews were instituted in some cities, states and territories such as New York, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico.  

Altogether, the social effects of the ongoing pandemic can be explained using diverse expertise drawn from classical and contemporary theoretical foundations. In this regard, classical and contemporary social theories can provide insights into the social effects of Covid-19 across the world, and particularly in the United States, where unique consequences of racism, inequality, neoliberal capitalism, materialism, individualism, and leadership can be investigated using ethnomethodology. The discussion commences by explaining the implications of the pandemic on the global and American social order. Thereafter, inequality and racial inequality, with special attention being given to the United States, are discussed.   

COVID-19 effects on social order

Social order can be viewed as the collective patterns of behavior and relations across a group of people that is enforced through interlinked systems in customs, institutions, and social structures. It can also be viewed as the maintenance of a stable society that is devoid of social chaos due to the wide acceptance and preservation of social structures by its members. In this case, the functionalist perspective of social order indicates that social harmony and equilibrium is maintained when society functions as a system of well-functioning interrelated parts. In a well-established social order, different parts of society influence and are influenced by each other, which in turn, yields a collective perception of normality.   

Covid-19 has affected the global social order in fundamental ways, specifically by influencing the way people behave, interact, and relate. The interrelated parts of the modern society are being shaken at their core while social stability is being threatened by the possibility of creating a new and unpredictable state of balance and social equilibrium. For instance, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is threatening the well-established social order of physical, frequent, and face-to-face human interactions and networks, which are being radically transformed towards virtual and infrequent interactions that focus only on the very essential aspects needed for human survival. Moreover, the social institutions that facilitate the proper functioning in society, such as schools, law enforcement agencies, religious places of worship, are experiencing unprecedented circumstances that may change, and even diminish their effectiveness in promoting social order.

Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton are classical and contemporary theorists, respectively, renowned for their functionalist sociological perspectives. In this respect, they provide a classical and contemporary theoretical perspective of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic from a social order lens. To them, social institutions play a critical role in the proper functioning in society. 

Emile Durkheim’s classical theory of COVID-19 as a social fact

According to Emile Durkheim, a social fact is a “way of acting” of an entire society that influences daily life by placing external constraints. In this respect, social facts are embodied in social institutions that dictate the norms governing the acceptability or rejection of individuals in a group or society (Shaffer, 2006). As a classical theory, social facts exert external social control in entire societies by influencing the social structures, cultural norms and values. Social facts therefore, present ways of feeling, thinking, and acting that are coercively imposed in individuals by external forces that have control over people and their communities. Durkheim introduces a concept of functionalism that guides the patterns in a society through conscience as the force motivating the conformity of people, while protecting them from social ills (Jones, 2006). However, the constraint and exteriority aspects of social facts, as explained by Durkheim, have led to what has become known as Durkheim’s aphorism, in which arguments about the unaware involvement of social actors about their role on the daily life experiences and the presentation of reality as an ideal situation have emerged (Shaffer, 2006). Despite these contrasting arguments, Durkheim provides critical insights into the effects of Covid-19 to the functional aspect of society through the impact on social institutions.

Covid-19 can be considered a social fact because it has significantly influenced the behavior of people across the world by imposing new restrictions on social interactions, which are external to the society members. Specifically, Covid-19 can be viewed as a phenomenon that is exerting an external force on people and institutions in the United States and across the world, causing them to change their normal behavior and functions. Notably, healthy Americans are being forced to sever close interactions with each other through physical distancing to avoid transmitting the deadly virus. In addition, the American government has been forced to divert more resources to healthcare, restrict internal and international movement, and attend to the vulnerable members of the society whose livelihoods and wellbeing have been threatened by the pandemic. Moreover, schools and workplaces have been forced to close down to protect children and workers, thus disrupting learning and working as daily activities.    

Covid-19 has also significant constraints that have caused social distractions across society and its institutions. Healthy people are shunning the infected ones, which countries have targeted their travel bans to countries like China and Italy, which are termed as the pandemic hotspots. In this regard, social groups across the world place constraints on individuals by dictating the acceptable social relations, values and norms, in conformity to the general theory of social order and deviance advanced by Durkheim (Thorlindsson & Bernburg, 2004). The American leadership has been particularly vocal on China’s role in the creation and spreading of the disease, causing many people to view the Chinese negatively, despite their efforts to inform the world on the nature of the coronavirus.

However, the externality and constraints of Covid-19 as a social fact, as explained by Durkheim, can also be explained from the “Durkheim aphorism” arguments. For instance, in deviating from Durkheim’s theories and arguments, Covid-19 is increasingly becoming a source of social conflict and threatening the social cohesion functions of institutions. From a functionalism perspective, institutions such as law enforcement are seen as a cause of social dysfunction as they attempt to force organic solidarity among people by accelerating a change in norms. This is evident in the United States where sections of their society are rebelling against these new norms, values, and actions by calling a return to the initial social order that existed before the coronavirus pandemic (Cunningham, 2020). This demonstrates that some Americans are feeling isolated in what is expected to be a tightly integrated American society, an indication that social integration in the United States is weak, going by the increasing levels of individualism and waning feelings about collective rules and norms in the advent of Covid-19 (Thorlindsson & Bernburg, 2004). Indeed, the pandemic is a major test of the American social order and its level of social integration and regulation.  

Robert Merton’s contemporary theory of COVID-19

According to Robert Merton’s strain theory, a society can exert pressure on individuals to pursue goals that are socially acceptable, despite the absence or scarcity of the means to attain them. In this respect, structural and individual strains could lead individuals to engage in criminal activities for monetary gain as they seek some form of social security.

Kalleberg, R. (2007). Moreover, in his conceptualizations of anomie and strain, Merton notes that when engaging in criminality, individuals employ “legitimate and illegitimate means” to capitalize on opportunities that can deliver the American Dream (Murphy & Robinson, 2008, p. 501). Conformist and innovator elements bring together certain learned skills that are otherwise used legitimately to conduct illegitimate actions (Murphy & Robinson, 2008). This explains the rise of cybercrime levels across the world, as people spent more time working virtually to conform to social distancing orders. Cases of organization and individual impersonations, breaching teleconferencing meetings, and stolen identities are on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic.   

Manifest function of COVID-19

According to the theory of manifest function advanced by Merton, social actions, processes, and policies are often designed deliberately and consciously to benefit the society. In this respect, governments across the world have formulated public health policies, interventions, and guidelines that are aimed at protecting citizens from the vagaries of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. For instance, the United States government has advised people to stay at home, avoid crowding, and only venture outside when it is absolutely necessary, to avoid contracting Covid-19. In this respect, the American media, as a social institution, has pervaded the airwaves with news related to the pandemic, reporting the rising cases regularly and echoing the public health advisories. The media has therefore played a manifest functional role by persuading people to follow the regulations that would help them avoid contracting Covid-19. In this regard, the media has been responsible for turning Covid-19 as a self-fulfilling prophesy with the behavior of Americans undergoing fundamental changes, after days of believing that the pandemic would pass swiftly. 

Latent function of COVID-19

According to the theory of latent function posited by Merton, social actions, processes, and policies can produce unintended outcomes that are also beneficial to the society. In this respect, some social actions, processes, and policies implemented during the coronavirus pandemic have had unintended benefits, with for instance, the stay at home orders promoting the use of internet-based technologies to maintain social interactions and perform economic activities virtually, while maintaining physical distance to deter the spread of the disease. In turn, online businesses, such as teleconferencing and online shipping, which were once reserved for those seeking convenience, are now becoming a commonality, enhancing the prospects of the online services industry. However, according to the maximization concept advanced by Merton, the expanding online space it providing both legitimate means (e-commerce) and illegitimate means (cybercrime) of pursuing the proverbial American dream (Murphy & Robinson, 2008). In this regard, the latent functionalism of Covid-19 has unearthed the criminogenic nature of the American dream as Americans seek to succeed by any means, despite the limitations from the ongoing pandemic. Moreover, success in the United States is more individualized , with American multinationals, such as Amazon raking in about $33 million per hour in revenues in the first three months of 2020 when other firms and individuals were being ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic (Rushe & Sainato, 2020). This success comes amid accusations that the company was not protecting its workers enough from the pandemic, which demonstrates the pervasiveness of maximization in corporate America.   

Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology of the coronavirus

Accounting for social life can be achieved through ethnomethodology, which was proposed by Harold Garfinkel, in his attempt to explain social order in a practical rather than a theoretical undertaking (Pollner, 2012b). Although ethnomethodologists concur with Durkheim regarding social facts as fundamental sociological phenomena, they diverge by considering social facts as not being external of the members of society. In this regard, sense-making about the everyday world involves individuals and organizations as rational actors capable of producing social facts. However, Garfinkel warns against trivializing social accounts with determinism because the focus should not be on the accuracy of the accounts, but rather on the way they are delivered. In this regard, rational accountability is traded for experience and intelligibility to illustrate the confusion that characterizes social order (Pollner, 2012a). In this regard, Garfinkel notes that ethnomethodology is rife with inconsistencies and advocates the use of breaching experiments as appropriate studies for testing normality in society, which is an elusive and ambiguous concept.

The coronavirus pandemic can be viewed as a huge breaching experiment about the changing normality across the world, with fundamental questions about what is normal preoccupying the minds of many people. In such an experiment, Garfinkel would have been interested in the reactions of people regarding Covid-19 and the information he would gather about the unspoken practices and norms that are taken for granted (Werber, 2020). In fact, although people know that a “new normal” is emerging gradually, considering that Covid-19 may linger for a long while, until an effective vaccine is developed and availed globally, the form that the new normality will take is still evolving. In this respect, the pandemic is initiating pertinent concerns about normality when Americans that have been laid off questions the inevitability of work and discover that not working every day is not unusual. Similarly, the applications of technology are making Americans and organizations in the country question the need to have offices and workplaces, and in turn, have people commuting to work every day, while they can very well work from home. Notably, it is interesting that the Americans working is supply chains, such as delivery drivers, grocery store attendants, and hospital cleaners, are now being considered as essential workers alongside the healthcare professionals that are caring of Americans with Covid-19. Nonetheless, the essential workers engage in their daily activity while the pandemic rages on, endangering them as well, which raises questions about the necessity of work. In this regard, a sense of essentialism is sweeping across the United States, as Americans question what is important and what is not as some aspects of life that were previously ignored become visible and pertinent.   

Inequality of the Coronavirus

Karl Marx’s theory and how it relates to COVID-19

Karl Marx is a classical theorist that is credited with developing theories about social class, economics, and social order, through concepts like capitalism, socialism, and historical materialism. Covid-19 presents a global crisis through which Karl Marx’s theories be used to interpret the challenges to the existing capitalistic world system. Specifically, the frailties of the capitalistic world order and the manifestations of social inequalities are exposed by the ongoing pandemic, demonstrating some of the eventualities predicted by Marx.   

Capitalism

Karl Marx was an ardent critic of capitalism by predicting that the capitalistic world order would lead the world to anarchy due to the enormous inequalities it produced in societies and the disenchantment such inequalities elicited in the aggrieve people (Heinrich, 2013). According to Marx’s crisis theory, although capitalists focus on generating profits and accumulating wealth, the rate this success drops, due to the inherent systemic weaknesses of the of the capitalist structures, as presented in the “law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall” (Heinrich, 2013, p. 20). Although he could not provide empirical evidence to his assertions, Marx noted that the long-term decline in profits was due to the capitalistic way of deploying the forces of production.

 In the United States, capitalism is inseparable from the federal and state policies aimed at maintaining economic activities in the midst of a global pandemic. This explains why despite the obvious dangers of working and intermingling or workers, states have avoided shutting down essential services, and have started opening up the country’s economy despite the high rates of infections in the country. Moreover, the country is experiencing high rates of infections and fatalities because, like other developed economies in Western Europe and East Asia, trade and movement between cities is intense. As part of the globalized capitalism, the United States is at risk of plunging into postmodern viciousness through the same productive forces that have helped accumulate its wealth. For instance, already, it has accused China of engineering the pandemic despite being its greatest trading partner.   

Inequality

Profiteering is the biggest driver of inequalities in society. Unfortunately, it is often camouflaged as freedom in countries that embrace neoliberal policies and international free trade. Marx viewed capitalism as the cause of inequalities in society in which the owners of the factors of production make huge profits at the expense of the workers, who are exploited and left languishing in poverty (Veneziani, 2013). In this regard, capitalism is seen as being insensitive to social justice, particularly when viewed from distributive perspective.

The inequality outcomes of capitalism are visible in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, where countries are competing in the international market for medical supplies. Unfortunately, the wealthy countries are able to buy and stockpile vast medical supplier for their domestic use while the poor ones are left without adequate supplies for their citizenry. In the United States, wealthy states were at one time, outbidding the less wealthy ones at the medical suppliers market, as the federal government abandoned them to engage in fragmented procurement. Moreover, some large corporations in the country continued to function because they had the financial muscle to enact the protection requirements, while small businesses opted to wait the pandemic out because they could not afford operating under the guidelines provided. In all this, the wellbeing of the American worker has been overshadowed by the intent to keep the country economically functional.

Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capitalism as it pertains to COVID-19

Cultural capital is a concept explains the transfer of power and the maintenance of social classes in society, which was advanced by Pierre Bourdieu in the 1970s. Notably, cultural capital is linked to symbolic, social and economic capital, which explains the power dynamics in society. Similarly, Bourdieu explains the linkage between capital, field and habitus to explain change in societies (Yang, 2014). These concepts founded the cultural economic theory which helps explain the everyday “lives of socially situated individuals” (Hinde & Dixon, 2007).

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is characterized by cultural capitalism in which the countries that are financially endowed are dictating the how those without resources should behave, even restricting their movement more severely. Within the United States, the interlinkage between economy and culture plays out is the power dynamics across different cultures. Capitalism has entrenched and institutionalized inequality, as demonstrated by the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on the economically disempowered communities, such as the African Americans (Milam, et al. 2020). In this respect, the ongoing pandemic has exposed the deep-rooted inequalities in accessing healthcare services in the United States, in which African Americans are grossly disadvantaged.   

Max Weber’s bureaucratic theory of the coronavirus

The prevailing ideas about authority, domination, political leadership, and bureaucracy are attributed to Max Weber, a famed German sociologist and philosopher. He also formulated the theory of bureaucracy, in which organizations are administered through precisely-defined and organized principles. He is also credited for developing a theory of stratification, whose distinct elements are the political party, social status and social class. Interestingly, Weber passed on after contracting the Spanish flu, and now this theories can be used to explain the social effects of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic (Houghton, 2010).

Bureaucratic theory

The theory of bureaucracy is anchored in six pillars, which are task specialization, hierarchical management structure, formal selection rules, efficient and uniform requirements, impersonal environment, and achievement-based advancement. In this regard, ideal bureaucracies should have clearly defined job roles, meticulous record-keeping, human resource recruitment based only on specific qualifications, and work-appropriate relationships as the only acceptable relationships in the workplace.

Covid-19 has revealed the importance of highly-skilled healthcare workers in combating global infectious disease pandemics. Governments across the world are heavily reliant on the services and advice presented by the healthcare professionals to combat the spread of coronavirus disease. However, countries like the United States are in need of a charismatic leader who would champion the way the country approaches global pandemics and crises (Houghton, 2010). Such a leader would enhance the country’s resilience against future crises through prudent planning and financial support. This is opposed to the current case in the United States, in which the leadership downplayed the pandemic and disregarded the professional advice from healthcare experts in the initial stages of the pandemic (Jernigan, 2020). In this regard, the leadership should have echoed the precautionary directives given by the centered for disease control and prevention (CDC) to save the highly-impacted low social economic status individuals and communities.

Class and status

Unlike Marx’s perceptions of social stratifications as being based in personal possessions, Weber conceptualized society as being categorized based on a) social class, a purely economic determinant, b) status, based on noneconomic attributes such as religion, prestige and honor, and c) party, which is the political affiliation of an individual or group (Scott, 2014). During crises, social stratification plays out in the way different social classes of people are impacted and how those with power disenfranchise those without.

The effects of Covid-19 have permeated all social categories, although those in the lower social stratums have been aggrieved more than those in the upper echelons in society. For instance, people with with low socioeconomic status are more likely to die from the disease because of living in crowded communities with poor housing infrastructure, inability to access quality healthcare services, and having low immunity due to poor nutrition (Jernigan, 2020). In the United States, those in the upper class can afford to be tested regularly for the coronavirus while those in the lower class may die from the disease without healthcare support.  

Racial inequality social view of COVID-19

W.E.B. Du Bois’s Pan-Africanism and how it relates to the virus

Pan-Africanism took a modern turn due to the efforts of Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which is the largest and oldest civil rights organization in the United States. He is credited for developing the theory of anticolonial nationalism, which has been used in racial discourses in the United States, especially by the African American community (Kendhammer, 2007). This discourse has resurfaced as African Americans continue to be impacted heavily by Covid-19. The clarion call by the Black Lives Matter movement demonstrated the frustration of the African Americans, especially after the death of George Floyd in the hands of white police officers, in the midst of the pandemic. In turn, people in many countries have echoed the calls to the United States to end the systemic and institutionalized racism that continues to marginalize the African Americans. Moreover, this debate has permeated the electioneering process as Joe Biden’s campaign exposed the shocking Covid-19 statistics from Georgia, which revealed that 80% of the patients were African Americans, despite them making only 30% of the state’s population (Bluestein, 2020). 

     Racial formation of the virus by Omi and Winant

The racial formation theory was advanced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant to analyses the socially constructed identity called race. In this respect, ideological and cultural meanings, political organizations, and social conflicts in a society can be explained using the racial formation perspective (Feagin & Elias, 2013). Racial formation operates through the individual identity and collective social structure, which are the micro and macro levels, respectively. Notably, individuals can be mobilized to respond to political racial injustices when confronted with enormous social issues, which illustrates the interactions between the micro and macro levels of racial formation (Saperstein, Penner & Light, 2013).

Covid-19 has unearthed the racial tensions that exist in unequal multicultural societies, such as that in the United States. The recent incident of the killing of George Floyd, and African American, by White American police officers has caused countrywide riots and protests in the United States, with the resentment against the government and law enforcement being to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the African American community (McKie, 2020). The frustrations and anger displayed by African Americans are indications that they are ready to take violent action to change the status quo in the American system, with Covid-19 fueling these actions (Morial, 2020). The arrest and charging of the implicated police officers, the police department reforms, and the overwhelming funding to end systemic and institutional racism in the country is testament that the racial tensions can no longer be tolerated.

Summary

The social ramifications of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic are vast, enormous, and diverse. Classical theorists explain how the pandemic is destroying the social fabric and changing the social order of the society in fundamental ways. Contemporary theorists inject the social ramifications emanating from the contemporary economic order, which is proving to be incapable of addressing a global crisis effectively. In some instances, political expediency is being prioritized over the social wellbeing of certain disenfranchised segments of society, and the public is taking notice and voicing their dissatisfaction with the status quo. Altogether, the fragility of American social structure has been explained from a sociological perspective. The capitalistic culture, materialism, and individualism are being questioned as to whether they are normal, or whether a new normal will emerge after covid19 that can make the Americans a more cohesive and fair society with the buy-in of all citizens.    

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