Pandemic Reality: Current Problems and Prospects

Abstract

The problems of adaptation of residents of the Belgorod region to the pandemic reality are considered. The author substantiates the identification of actual and potential transformations of regional society as the main vectors as a result of the complex impact of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the results of the author's sociological research, it is shown that the impact of the pandemic on the lifestyle of the population turned out to be quite significant, although most of the changes mainly affected individual hygiene practices. There is a clear tendency to limit social contacts and social life – a trend whose development will depend on the further policy of the state. Here, therefore, a "fork" is fixed, from which society can go either in the direction of increasing atomization, or on the way to overcome it. The latter is possible if the state and public institutions choose methods and technologies of social consolidation that are adequate to the situation. The undeniable and complex impact of the pandemic on the life situation in most households in the region has been empirically confirmed. This influence, although manifested in a number of positive effects (which include, for example, increased attention to one's own health), has a predominantly negative dimension. And if it affects intra–family communications only slightly, it is much more manifested in the deterioration of the quality of education (implemented in a distance format) and the associated physical and psychological burden on household members, and, most importantly, in the reduction of accessibility and quality of medical care and the increase in poverty risks.

Acknowledgements: The study was carried out within the framework of the state task of the National Research University "BelSU", project No. FZWG-2020-0027 "Socio-demographic determinants of the development of rural territories of the Central Chernozem Economic Region".