COVID-19: From Biological Reality to the Social Construction of a Virus

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic that we are facing nowadays has shattered various aspects of people's lives worldwide. Although, SARS-CoV-2 virus that is responsible for the coronavirus disease remains invisible to people. Therefore, a pluri-disciplinary research approach appears necessary in order to challenge the invisible enemy and the related "domino effect" of consequences. The current research aims to bear a pluri-disciplinary investigation based on innovative methodological approaches towards the COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, the objective is to deploy methods from the field of physics, computational sciences and nanometric solutions of microscopy, that allow to study the biological image of SARS-CoV-2 virus which is an enveloped particle of 50-200 nm in diameter. Secondly, the objective is to investigate the socially constructed image of SARS-CoV-2 virus within French population by a social representation approach. Indeed, humans' cognition, emotions and behaviours are driven primarily by subjective comprehension of the reality. Thus, the multi-level management of the COVID-19 pandemic requires irrevocably a thorough comprehension of laypeople's representations and the underpinning social construction processes that contribute to the formation of a subjective image of the virus. Such an in-depth understanding of discrepancies between the biological image and the socially constructed image of SARS-CoV-2 virus might allow to increase the overall crisis management effectiveness. The implications for an improved crisis management of current and future sanitary pandemics will be discussed.