An ethnographic study of the risks to and potentialities for social health during the Corona crisis (CoronaCare)

Political responses to the 'Corona pandemic' have predominantly focused on containing the spread of Sars-CoV-2 in order to maintain the physical health of the population. Everyone is simultaneously at risk of infection and a risk for infecting others. How humans as fundamentally social beings relate to each other is being radically altered in the responses to the 'Corona crisis'. CoronaCare examines how the political and societal responses to the pandemic influence social health, including how people negotiate the risks regarding their social health during the crisis. From the perspective of social medicine, we understand social health as the everyday social experiences at the level of communities, social networks, families and individuals. CoronaCare investigates four interconnected specific research aims: 1. To understand the tensions that arise in individuals' lives who live under political regulations working to minimize in-person (embodied) interactions; 2. to analyse strategies that individuals and communities develop to uphold social health; 3. to examine how caregivers in informal and institutional settings negotiate the tensions in their care relationships under current regulations of social isolation and 'risk worries' of the Corona crisis; and 4. to document how care receivers experience these tensions, in particular social isolation and the 'risky' relationship with their caregivers. CoronaCare deploys an ethnographic study design, utilizing qualitative telephone interviews, citizen science/ethnographic observational methods and surveys as data collection tools.